


Figures in the Daylight

by angelxtal



Series: MCU Stories [7]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alpha Loki (Marvel), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, F/M, Getting Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic, Not Canon Compliant, Omega Tony Stark, kind of slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-09-24 11:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17099747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelxtal/pseuds/angelxtal
Summary: When two Soulmates make physical contact, the mate bond glows between their hands and their identical marks on their arms. Tony has never met his mate before.A friend has fallen ill and only magic can heal him. Desperate for help, Tony and Thor bring in Loki to heal him, only to find that Loki had been under Thanos' control when he attacked New York years ago. He was innocent. What happens when Tony meets the Trickster God face-to-face?-----------------------This story is already completely written.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This story is already completely written. You can find more of my writing on [tumblr](http://starkmarks.tumblr.com/) and [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/admxtal).
> 
> If you want to talk to me you can find me on snapchat as @admxtal.

The Avengers were protective of Tony Stark. He was an Omega, the provider of the Pack money-wise, keeping everyone in the Tower with their own room to be their den. Each set of mates within the pack had a floor to themselves and their choice of mission, all because Tony Stark wanted them to feel taken-care of. Each Avenger knew that there was always someone looking out for them because Tony had designed FRIDAY just for that, to look out for their every need. So, for a bunch of people with no money, and only skills in battle and science, they returned his care with a fierce protectiveness.

Because Tony was nearing his mid-life when taking into account that his health had been damaged by his past alcoholism and lack of mate, they were each worried about him. At his age he should have found his Alpha by now—or any gendered person, actually—but he was, presumably, unmated, and refused to take anyone else as a mate. Tony had never planned on finding his Soulmate; it was just unrealistic. Yes, Cap had woken up after seventy years to find his soulmate alive and almost-well, but for Tony? It just wasn’t going to happen. He was nearing his mid-life, if he took into consideration the fact that due to his alcoholism his life would be cut short by about ten years. If he hadn’t found his mate by now, there was absolutely no chance that he was going to end up magically wandering upon the mystery-man he’d been waiting for since he was a child. Though having a mate was essential to everyone’s health, he didn’t want to take away an opportunity for someone else to find a mate.

So, life moved on. Tony accepted that he would not have a mate and, though he burned with loneliness at night, continued his job and duties for the Pack. But the Avengers did not always win. Sometimes, they could lose when there wasn’t even a battle in the first place.

Some time after Bucky’s return, a problem was presented. He was in pain, feeling the effects of aging without any outward evidence of him growing older. For months they had been breaking into HYDRA bunkers and reverse-engineering any serums they could find, but there was no clue as to how they were going to fix it.

Tonight, the tower was quiet altogether, each person working in the offices having left and each Avenger drinking from their cup without saying a word. Today had been a loss, a battle failed after a month of planning, and none of them much felt like doing anything except drinking. Tony, sober for five years, was curled up in a blanket by the fireplace drinking grape juice with Peter. They were silent.

Finally, as the fire crackled behind them, Peter sighed. “We’ll get it next time, right?” The plan had been to infiltrate an old HYDRA bunker so that they could find a recipe for the Serum that HYDRA used on Bucky, but they’d found nothing. “The serum’s just in the next bunker over; we just have to find it?”

Tony nodded good-naturedly. He didn’t want to lie, but he wanted to make the kid’s sad expression go away. This was supposed to be a fun weekend over at the Tower while May was out of town, and now all they were doing was licking their wounds. “Yeah, we’ll get it. We’ve got the best on our side. All the bunkers are abandoned anyway.”

It had been two years since they’d taken down HYDRA, three since Bucky had returned. All they’d been doing in their free time was raiding old stations, trying to find scraps of the organization which had self-destructed upon being infiltrated. The HYDRA leaders were all in the wind, though the organization itself was gone. Someone, somewhere, had that serum. And in that serum they would find a way to stop the side-effects of the Serum, which were draining Bucky of his energy.

Steve shook his head. “So fuckin’ tired of HYDRA.” He only ever swore when it was about HYDRA. They’d taken his mate. How could he not hate them? “They took Bucky for years, now all the men are just running.”

Now it was Natasha’s turn to sigh. “We’re doing our best.”

“I know.”

It was silent for a moment, and no one said anything. Then, Thor, reclining on a sofa which looked too small underneath him, laid his head back on the arm of the couch. “I am sorry that your mate was hurt, Steve. Where I come from, there is never a negative word to be said on the topic of mates. Not even when one has been hurt.”

“Your mate wasn’t stolen by HYDRA, then returned _seventy years later_.” Steve wouldn’t talk like this in front of Bucky, no. He was tucked away in their bedroom, napping in peace. It was only because he wasn’t here that Steve was letting himself be angry.

Hearing Steve say anything unsavory just made Tony’s heart ache. He didn’t like it. He wanted Steve to stay that perfect picture of a good-hearted, pure Alpha. It was reassuring to have someone around who was always morally-checking themselves. It only made Tony want to have a mate even more, though.

He couldn’t deny that that terrible, screaming sensation in the back of his head telling him to take a mate was intriguing. He used to think about it often. In fact, before Bucky had turned up he had considered letting Steve mate with him instead. It seemed like a good option since Bucky was supposed to be dead, but after the scare of almost mating someone with a real mate, he was never going to make the same mistake.

No, Tony was going to stay without a mate. He knew that he had one, as all people with symbols on their forearms did, a matching one for each pair which would glow when they met, but so far he had never met anyone with a symbol even close to his. He would be without a mate for the rest of his life, most likely. Maybe he had a mate at one point, and they were dead now. Who knew?

He just listened back into the conversation. Steve was gripping his glass dangerously tight, and Tony would’ve been concerned about it breaking had he not been the one to design the special _Steve-can-only-drink-from-this-one-when-he’s-made-because-he’s-freakishly-strong_ cup. Thor was musing on the Super Soldier’s words.

“Jane is safe…But sometimes things do not end up how we planned. When I was a child, playing on Asgard, I always thought that it would be Loki and I with our mates when we were older; our mates would be best friends.”

Natasha snorted. “Can a trickster God even have a mate? How can you know that the marks aren’t faked? He can make himself look like whatever he wants.” She didn’t like hearing anything from Thor that made Loki seem more human. Not after what he’d done to Clint. Even though Thor and Loki were siblings, that didn’t mean that he could be some casual conversation topic.

Hearing about Loki made Tony a little itchy. It always made him uncomfortable to hear that name. It was probably because of the concept of _magic_ , the one thing which could rival his technology. It had been Natasha who took Loki down in the first place, luring him up to the bar in the Tower before de-arming him with some of Tony’s blasters. Tony hadn’t even gotten the chance to see him before he was whisked away to Asgard where they were to learn about the magic of his scepter.

But Tony didn’t need to meet the God to know that this _magic_ was not ideal at all.

“I don’t know.” Thor continued, as if sad. “I never saw his mate mark. I know that this is not strange to you humans—you’re so private with your marks, you never even show them to anyone but your mates—but on Asgard it made him…strange. People were wary of him because of it. He kept it covered, as you said, so that no one could see it. I suspect that he kept the sash around his wrist because he could not change the mark. Otherwise, he would have made it look like he didn’t have one. Plenty of Gods don’t. It’s uncommon for two brothers to each have one.”

“He’s adopted, though.”

“It’s uncommon for two _Gods_ to have them.” He rolled his eyes. “My point is, you don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe we won’t find the serum recipe, but that doesn’t mean a cure won’t be found.”

“He’s a hundred-year-old Omega and he feels like it, but he looks twenty-seven. What cure is there for that?”’

“Not one which has yet been thought of, but perhaps one which will soon be invented. You should rely on our good friends here. They will do good, just as they have so far.” Thor gestured all around him to the crowd of people in the living room, all lying still. “They will fix Bucky.”

“What about you?” Steve asked. “Aren’t you going to help?”

“Of course. I will continue breaking into HYDRA bunkers and they will do the science. Jane can help, too. I am no good with your Midgard science.” The God said easily. “I am good with lightening.”

The Super Soldier leaned back on the sofa. Beside Tony, Peter gently nuzzled his way under the blanket and against Tony’s chest. The man allowed Peter in, running a hand over his hair soothingly. “I don’t think magic’s the cure here.” Tony whispered. “I’ll figure something out.”

With that, Thor frowned. He was speaking not lowly in an upset way, but gently, trying not to disturb Peter, who finally appeared to be falling asleep. “Should we not exhaust all possibilities? What if magic is the answer?”

Bruce took a huge drink and fell back onto the sofa. “Yeah, no. Magic’s not the answer.”

“How do you know?”

“How do you know magic _is_ the answer?”

Thor sat up just a bit, slightly drunken from the alcohol that he had brought with him here. Midgard drinks wouldn’t do anything for him. “How can you say it would not be? We don’t even have answers about Loki’s scepter yet. Loki could draw energy from other people with it. What if we could use it to give energy to Bucky?”

“We searched that damned thing for years. Don’t you think we’d’ve found something by now?” Bruce asked, genuinely curious. He wasn’t one to rule out all possibilities without thought, but he wasn’t someone to keep his hopes high either. “We don’t know anything about it.”

“Is your technology not better now than it was back then? Why don’t we study it some more? I will have the scientists on Asgard look at it this time. We don’t need to know anything fancy, just if it could help a little. Maybe get him more time.”

The very idea of that just made Tony want to shiver. He didn’t want to go anywhere near the scepter. Yes, it made his scientific brain go wild in a frenzy of ideas, and it was possible that some good could come from re-checking it, but the _energy_ that it gave off made his toes curl.

“Send it to your people on Asgard, but it’s too much of a gamble for me to spend time on it. Not when I know I can find more HYDRA bunkers.”

Thor nodded, finding that fair. “Alright. Don’t worry, Steven. Your mate will be alright, you’ll see.” Steve gave a halfhearted smile as Thor got to his feet. “I am going to head to my room. Should I carry Peter up to his? He looks like he is asleep.”

The boy rustled slightly. “’m awake.”

“No, you’re not.” Tony smiled. “I’ll take him,” he said to Thor and gathered Peter up in his arms, beginning his trek to his bedroom. It was normal for unmated Omegas to stay in the same bed; it was good for their health, and since today had been a bust, Tony figured that they would need it.

As he walked into his bedroom and made them a little nest in the middle of the bedroom, he couldn’t help but to think about what Thor had said about Loki. There were no pictures of the man, just old, ambiguous paintings done in the old ages of a supposed Trickster God. What did he really look like? In some depictions he was a woman, in some a man. He never held a scepter in a single one of them, so where did he get it?

As Peter stirred in his sleep, Tony silenced his thoughts and laid down with a gentle exhale of air. He wrapped himself around the boys and closed his eyes. They would all need their sleep tonight.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is way longer than this. This, like the prologue which you DO NEED TO READ, is like an intro to the story, setting up everything.

Two more months, and there was no hope of finding a cure for Bucky. Bruce worked tirelessly in his lab with his mate, but neither he or Natasha could figure anything out. She hacked through every database she could find, held knives to every throat she came across, but there were no more bunkers to anyone else’s knowledge. He ran every test and researched every medical theory that there was on aging Omegas, but not a single thing stuck.

Tony worked day and night to try and find something to help his friend. He brought in experts from any field he thought might help, but they were all just as befuddled as they were sworn to secrecy. No, no one outside of those who needed to know were aware that Bucky was in pain, and therefore it could not be used against them, but they were no closer to finding a cure.

At night, Tony cried for his friend and cried for himself, hating that he had ever disliked the man. Bucky had been nothing but shy and kind and broken, and yet Tony had wished for him to die many times over once he learned about his parents. Now, looking back on it, Tony couldn’t even imagine still feeling that way. Bucky was one of his closest friends and most solid recovery-stories, having lived on after B.A.R.F like the same man who had lived in the thirties. Now, with no physical signs of aging but all the pains of one, he was living like a _normal_ man who had lived in the thirties. He was dying, and there was nothing that they could do about it.

Tony had even taken to checking in with Thor once a week to see if anything had changed there. So far, the Alpha hadn’t even replied. Now, three weeks after they had raided that last empty HYDRA bunker, their last real chance, Tony laid on the living room floor in front of the fire once again, closing his eyes and desperately hoping for a miracle. Bucky survived worse, he was going to get through this…

 _“Boss,”_ FRIDAY’s voice sounded from the ceiling, _“I have a message from Asgard. It is Thor, and it is a direct message.”_

Tony’s heart did a little flip, a symptom of his ever-hopeful Omega tendencies wishing for a solution to create itself, but he pushed it down. “Play it, FRI.”

_“Tony, I am calling from Asgard. It has been three Midgard weeks, I believe, and the scientists here are saying that they found something from the scepter. They’re not sure that it will work on Bucky, I am afraid, but they got something else. An energy that it was giving off. You know that Loki claimed that he had no control over what he did in your New York, but we never believed him. My scientists are telling me that they found evidence that was true, that the scepter was influencing him, causing him to grow in greed.”_

Tony gaped and scrambled forward to have FRIDAY pause it. “FRI! How long is this message?”

_“Three minutes long. Would you like me to continue playing?”_

“Yes, yes… It’s recorded?”

_“Yes.”_

“Go on.”

Thor’s voice continued to play out through the speakers. _“This means that he really had no choice over what he was doing. It was the same effect that was had over your friend Clint, they say. I am not sure what to think, but we are holding the courts together soon. Loki will want to leave as soon as he gets his travel privileges right. I do not know what will happen; Stark, we imprisoned him when it appears he was also a victim.”_

Tony wanted to scream in frustration. The same thing that happened to Clint?! Loki was the one who did that to Clint! But it was just a recording.

_“We are running tests on him to see if he is still at all under the influence of the scepter, but I fear that he is free now, that he has been ever since he was imprisoned. I am going to have to let him go now. I will send you a message with an update from the courts, but you should know that I do not think he will be coming back to Midgard. He seems afraid of what happened there. He wants nothing to do with it._

_"On the subject of Bucky, however, I was considering that if Loki is indeed good, he may know a way to use the scepter to help your friend. He does not play tricks on Omegas; he never has, and I would trust him even under the scepter's powers not to harm him, but it is possible that he may even be able to help. I will call you once again later, but for now I must go. You can tell Steve that I will not ask Loki for help until Bucky says that it is okay. Goodbye.”_

Tony’s mind whirled, and he couldn’t help but to fall back onto the chair behind him. Loki was not under the influence of fucking magic! “Steve!” He yelled, knowing that the man was just one room away, giving Bucky a bath in the largest bathroom of the Tower, in Tony’s bedroom. The man had allowed him to use it. “Check your messages from Thor!”

 A faint voice sounded from behind the wall separating them. “What?” Steve asked over the running water. In front of him, Bucky was holding his knees to his chest and shaking from his pain.

“Check your messages from Thor!” Tony screamed louder. He scrambled over to the bedroom door and knocked frantically; he knew that Steve wouldn’t hear him if he was just yelling back and forth. “Let me in!”

Steve growled a little. He’d been on-edge lately and having someone bang on the door where his Omega was being held wasn’t going to help him take it down a notch. He reached forward and turned off the water so that he could catch what Tony was saying. “I’m not letting you in here, you said Buck could use the bath.” Tony had promised that he wouldn’t interrupt.

“This is urgent! It’s about Loki.”

Steve’s head shot up, and even Bucky managed to raise his gaze towards the door. The mobile Super Soldier shut the shower curtain, whispering reassurances to Bucky that it would be fine even when they couldn’t see each other, and opened the door. “Did he escape?” was the first question he asked.

Tony spilled into the room like a hurricane, going straight to grab onto Steve’s arm. “Thor just told me that when they were studying the scepter they found something saying that Loki was _under its influence_ when he was attacking New York! They’re trying to let him go!”

“Wh-“ Steve was incredulous, “Under the influence? What does that mean?”

“Like Clint, with the blue eyes.”

“But Loki was the one who took over Clint’s mind, not-“

“I know! You have to call Thor back! He’s trying to let Loki go and get him to help Bucky!”

Steve’s gaze darkened. “He’s _what_?”

“Call him back!”

Among all the commotion, Peter pitter-pattered down the hallway, trailing behind Bruce as they both walked towards the bathroom. “What’s going on?” Bruce asked, and poking his head inside. Steve growled at him and he immediately took Peter by the shoulders and stepped back. “Tony, you’re not supposed to go in there while Bucky’s in the bath!”

Tony barely had time to roll his eyes. “Get Thor on the phone _now_ , FRIDAY!” He called, walking out of the room and slamming the door behind him. “You should dry Bucky off, Steve. Thor said he wanted to hear from Bucky himself.”

The smallest Avenger was curling into Bruce’s side a little, eyes averting to the floor in a time of tension. He was fine in battle; being an Omega didn’t hold him back in any way, but when it came to conflict among the people he felt safe with, he couldn’t help but to shrink away. “What’s going on, Mr. Stark?” He asked timidly, finally lifting his eyes to observe the man rushing into the kitchen to get his phone. Bruce’s fingers carded through Peter’s hair.

They had just been in the lab together, trying different serums which might help Bucky. Now Tony was _panicking_. What went wrong?

Tony grabbed onto his phone as FRIDAY reported to him that Thor was currently unavailable. “Well make him available, FRIDAY! Hack into something, send a fucking magical light message, I don’t care! They are not letting Loki out of jail!”

Bruce froze. “What?”

“They were looking into the scepter and they said they found that Loki was under the influence of magic when he attacked New York. They’re going and meeting with the _Courts_! Thor thinks that he’s innocent and he wants to see if he can help Bucky.”

Peter didn’t remember much about Loki himself, only the attack, but perked up at the idea of good news. “Well, could he?”

Tony turned around. “What?”

“Could he help? What if he has magic or something that could-“

“Peter, he attacked New York! He killed hundreds of people; you were _there_. That man is…is a terrorist.” Peter hated the way that Tony said it, like Peter was too stupid to understand the situation.

Indignant, Peter raised his gaze. “But Thor thinks he can help?”

“Thor is ridiculous. It’s his brother.” Tony shook his head and FRIDAY told him once again that there was nothing that could be done.

 _“Thor said in his message that he would call you ‘later’, in his message. Based on previous conversations, with Thor that can be anywhere from four hours to four days.”_ She said. _“It is only soon when he is back on Earth visiting his mate.”_

Tony groaned. “Fuck. Thor! Come on!”

There had to be something they could do to get his attention, to demand that he get his ass down here. Bruce’s mind raced with images of pummeling Loki into the pavement, of New Yorkers screaming all around him. He just had to get more information. He had to know if this was true. He just…he needed to talk to Thor. Thor was his friend and he wasn’t stupid. This just…this just wasn’t possible, right? “Tony,” he murmured, “what about the guy? The yellow-eyed guy who can see everything? Ham…Hamper or something. He can see us now, right? He must know that we need to see Thor. He can tell Thor.”

 _“Thor’s message reported that he was set to go to the Court after leaving the message. That is most likely why he cannot be reached.”_ FRIDAY told them. _“I can leave a note for him to call you immediately.”_

“Do that!”

They spent another thirty minutes yelling about what to do, going over what they knew about the scepter. Peter was wrapped up with a blanket, listening in curiously and Steve was angrily pacing back and forth in the middle of the living room. Tony was vigorously reading through old notes with Bruce.

Bruce hated to admit it, but it could be possible. It could be possible that the Asgardian scientists were right. After all, they knew more. But the others were a little more determined to find all of the ways in which it could be faked.

“They could be under his influence like Clint. Maybe they went to study the scepter and touched it; they’re controlled by him now.”

Tony shook his head. “I wish that could be an explanation, but we saw that cage he’s stuck in. No way is he getting out of that. It’s been years, he would have already. Plus, there were still people looking into it before. This was just the first time we had them looking for something specific. No, no, it has to be something else. What if they found a way to _use_ it themselves? It’s not Loki controlling it, but someone else? Power-hungry scientist?”

Peter sighed. “I always hated that trope…”

“That seems like Thor would realize.”

“Who says that he’s not being controlled too?”

Bruce sighed. “Doesn’t that seem…paranoid to you? Thor called to tell us what was happening. Why would he do that if he were _under the influence_?” Peter tried not to think that this all sounded like they were arguing about drunk people. “I think that we’re just looking for clarification in a story that we _just don’t have_. All that we can do is wait, even if it’s the hardest thing to do.”

* * *

It was exactly six hours later that Thor banged on Tony Stark’s bedroom window, having landed on his balcony. Tony screamed at the sound of a huge fist hiding glass, and the Krampus-like outline of the man bent over the window frame. He raised a gauntlet to the wall in front of him where the other Avenger was standing, fully prepared to shoot before FRIDAY chimed a little _It’s Thor, Boss_ , in his ear.

Heart hammering, he raced over to where the other man was, ripping back the bedroom curtains and watching the God outside, drenched from the rain. “Thor!” He screamed and opened the door.

The man was rubbing the back of his hand against his forehead to clear a path free of the raindrops where he could see. “Stark!” He called, smiling wide. “Sorry to intrude. I asked Heimdall to get me as close to you as he could. Of course, without being on top of you.” He said easily, hopping inside like a cat. The others rushed into Tony’s bedroom, forgetting to knock because they were all waiting for FRIDAY’s alert that Thor was here. Tony cringed a little at people entering his den without permission. Thor awkwardly walked into the bathroom where there was tile on the floor. “Sorry to get your room wet, friend. I know that this is your den.”

“Whatever,” Tony murmured, and Bruce rubbed at his side, remembering suddenly that none of them were supposed to be in here. “Tell us about Loki! What the hell is going on?”

Steve stepped forward. “We’re not letting him anywhere near Bucky!”

“I thought you might be of that opinion, which is why I brought this,” out from underneath his cape he pulled what looked like a sort of solid-gold laptop case. He held it out to Bruce, most comfortable with receiving items from someone who was potentially getting Bucky into something crazy. He was the least attached. “They are documents, translated for you. I am not sure that you will understand the science of it all—I do understand it, they taught me well in the courts today—but that is all of the information. Biology, they called it, and magic. I understand the magic best.”

Bruce eagerly went to open it, fumbling with the many glittering clasps on it, but it wouldn’t budge. “How do I-“

“Like this, you must be a God to open it,” Thor supplied, and then extended his arm to pop open the case. Brown paper was inside, coated in something to make it shine and stay hard as a rock. Surely enough, the words were in English. “Anyway,” he turned back to Steve, “I hope that you were informed I have no plans to do anything without Bucky’s consent, and Loki does not even want to come back to Midgard. He hates this place.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be real upfront about how he feels-“

 Thor held up a hand to stop Steve. “If you see in there, you will understand that he was not in his right of mind during the attack on your world. That does not mean that he is not a trickster, that is his position, but we Gods are also incapable of causing physical or magical harm to an Omega, not that he would.”

“As if he-“

He again stopped Steve, and the Alpha fumed. “We have watched Omega attack loved ones before and we have been rendered useless. I am sure of nothing about my brother except that he is powerless against Omegas. I would have seen him defend himself against many Omegas before, but he has not. He has always worked otherwise. _Anyway_ ,” he said pointedly, “let us all go down to the living room. We need to make sense of the documents, right?”

They all begrudgingly followed him and Tony eagerly closed the door to his bedroom. “FRI, don’t let anyone in there again, okay?”

_“Yes, Boss.”_

“What do you mean that he would have defended himself against Omegas?” Bruce asked curiously as they descended the staircase over to a place which could hold all of them.

Thor raised a brow. “Many species were after Loki, the last frost giant, when he was a child. They all sent Omegas because they knew that he was defenseless, and he was. We sent our Valkyrie, our Omega guards, to defend him. They were the only ones who could.” The God sighed and took off his cape, laying it out on the glass table where it would leave no water mark as it dried. He sat down on a sofa across from Bruce, who was looking over the papers. “The first paper has an explanation of a God’s biology. A very general one. I worried you might find it insulting, but I thought that would be worse than not being able to understand it.”  

Tony scrambled to get next to the other scientist, and Natasha sat down beside Steve, holding his hand. “Is Bucky sleeping again? We might want to wake him.” She said.

Steve shook his head. Like always, they’d left Bucky sleeping in his room, trying to ignore the pain in his joints. His muscles were degrading, veins growing thinner. At this rate, as Bruce calculated, six weeks was optimistic. “He needs to sleep,” the Alpha whispered. “He’s in too much pain. It’ll be no use if we don’t understand it when we explain it to him.”

They all looked to Thor, and he nodded. “I would not have raised the idea to you if I was not confident that it could be done safely.”

This was a risk, even coming here, he knew. These people had nothing but hate for his brother, maybe a little fear to go along with it. Steve ran his hands over his face. “What even happened today? You went to court. You have people who know everything, right? Like the guy who sees everything?”

“Heimdall was not aware of Loki’s biological changes when he had the scepter. Frankly, we had been questioning Loki’s loyalties for much time before he attacked New York. We could never be sure what was in and out of character when we were not sure of his character at all.”

“So what’s different now?”

“Well,” Thor sat up a little straighter, “the scientists went to the high courts and they were able to prove _without a doubt_ that Loki was not in control of his actions. When he went down to New York he was working with Thanos. I do not think that you know of him, but he is ruthless. Two years prior to that, Loki hated Thanos more than would be possible for a human. He would never have worked with Thanos, and was plotting to kill him along with his daughter—Thanos’ daughter, that is. The day he attacked New York he abandoned his plan to kill Thanos. We believe that that was because of the scepter. It turned hatred to greed.”

Steve shook his head. “God…”

“I can tell you this: Loki is going to walk free no matter what. We can’t say what might have happened without the scepter influence, we only know that what he did was not what he wanted to do.”

Tony leaned back. “No, no,” he said. “He cannot walk free!”

“He is. But-“

“He attacked New York-“

“ _He is walking free, Stark._ ” Thor said, almost appearing frustrated now. “But we have not told Loki that yet. He was not at the trial and he has not been asked if he remembers any of the New York attack. He has not had contact with another being in many of your human years. We do not know if he even knows why he was arrested. In the cage, he should be away from the influence—that is our suspicion right now—but there is no way to be sure how much he is aware of. My plan is to go to him and tell him that if he can cure Mr. Barnes, he can walk free. For that, he will do it. He does not need to know that he would walk free anyway.”

Tony listened eagerly, trying to find something in that sentence which would not make him want to rip his own hair out. There was nothing. “You want to trick the trickster God…and you don’t see any flaw in that plan?”

“Is it not worth a try?” The god asked. “Either he says that there is nothing he can do, and we still let him go, or he refuses to, and we still let him go, _or_ we can get him to heal Bucky. Loki has the strongest magic of any being. If there is any hope for your mate,” he turned to Steve, “then it is Loki. You don’t have to trust him, you just…you just have to be desperate enough. Are you not? I mean, have we found anything else?”

The Alpha was just shaking his head. It…it was awful. It was the absolute worst-case scenario to have to ask a trickster to help them do something honestly. He was not going to put his mate at risk by taking the very biggest gamble available. “Thor, this sounds like an awful idea-“

“I’ll do it.” They all turned around to find Bucky, donning fuzzy pajamas and a grimace on his face, standing behind the couch having listened in to everything.

“Buck-“

“No, I’ll do it.” He insisted, and then looked to Steve, who cared more about helping him sit down than helping him get the words out. “I lost seventy years with you, Stevie. Those were _our_ years. I want them back. I want…I want my future.”

Thor glanced around at the rest of them, who protested very quickly, and held up a hand. “No one’s opinion matters besides Bucky’s. I won’t let Loki come back here, if you don’t want, but if he wants to help Bucky and Bucky wants him to help, then I will arrange it. Are you sure that this is what you want, Bucky?”

He nodded. “I’m sure. Bring Loki here. Tell him to fix me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://starkmarks.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thor goes back to Asgard to see his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is completely unedited and there will probably be plot holes because I'm writing this in my free time -- I was going to end it where they met and like decided they liked each other and it was done really fast but now i want to make it a real story so I'm back in the process of writing it. Wish me luck.

Thor went back to bring news to Asgard right away.

Bucky’s pathetic whimpering all throughout the rest of the night made Steve shut up about disagreeing with the idea; after all, it’s useless to arguing with dying people. They’ll always have the upper hand. The two disappeared into their bedroom to lay in each other’s arms before doom was upon them, leaving Natasha, Bruce and Tony in the living room together.

The mechanic put his head in his hands. He couldn’t comprehend what was about to happen. Of course Bucky would be desperate for a fix, but _Loki_? Loki who had hurt their friend? Loki who had killed innocent people? “I can’t believe he’s doing this…” He murmured. “You’d think that Bucky would be the wariest about this, right? I mean, it’s his life.”

“I’m not surprised by it, actually.” Bruce said. “Based on this, it sure seemed like Loki wasn’t in his right mind.” He lifted up the thick stack of papers to show to his friend. “Thor’s positive, it looks like. And if anyone can relate to being out of their mind when they’re hurting someone, it’s Bucky.”

Natasha winced. “Empathy is dangerous.”

“Especially when it comes to Loki. He’s a _trickster_ God. It’s in his name.”

They all sighed. There was nothing that they could do.

* * *

 

When Thor arrived on Asgard, he went straight to the dungeons. He had not seen his brother in years, forbidden by Odin from seeing him. Apparently, contact of other beings to Loki would do nothing but risk their sanity. Thor had always thought that it was ridiculous, that Loki was still his brother even in times of mistake, but their father ruled Asgard. Thor had been too concerned with finding his mate to do anything about it. He and Jane had meet just days after Loki was thrown into the cage.

Tall stone doors slammed shut behind him, and per Thor’s request, Heimdall stood at his side. The room was a vast chamber sealed off from any sign of light, and this was just the staircase leading down to the cage.

“I always thought that it was cruel to keep him down here,” Thor muttered, “and now I know it is…do you think that Odin knew? He must have.” He inquired as they made their way down the stairs, heavy boots clanking against the slate of stones beneath them.

Guards were at their posts, standing on the straight path towards the cage. Thor wondered if any of them had ever snuck inside, ever heard Loki’s screams at night. To a God, a few years was nothing in comparison to their lifespan, but any amount of time away from people was torture enough. It went against everything that Asgardians were trained to live by. They were supposed to be a community working towards a greater goal, a people living side-by-side. Was this how they treated those who made mistakes? They threw them away, never looking back or bothering to see if there was an ulterior meaning to the event?

“If Odin knew, do you think that he would have kept him down here?” Thor wasn’t sure that it was a real question Heimdall was asking. They both knew that they would never have an answer to it. Odin had died four months ago, human time.

“I wish I could have that faith in him, but I do not.” Finally, they reached the last set of doors, intricately carved with illustrations of trapped serpents. Thor paid them no attention, swinging the doors wide open and strolling in.

He had meant to see Loki the minute that Odin died, but he was in denial. Without Odin dead, he would not visit his brother, but it seemed to impossible to Thor that his father was truly dead. As long as he could not accept the man’s death, he could not break the most important rule of any he had been given. As soon as he entered the cavern, filled with dark humidity, he wished that he had gotten past Odin sooner. He didn’t even know if Loki was alive, he just knew that Loki had never left this place.

“Loki,” he called ahead of him, wandering towards the huge cage which held his brother. Loki was in the middle of it, lying flat on his back on what Thor could only assume was at one point a mattress. The Trickster God made no move to do, and Thor advanced further. Could Loki be dead? Asleep? In a spell? “Loki!”

As he stood directly outside of the bars, tooth-pick-thin yet indestructible, and bunched so close together that it would be impossible for even the smallest child to fit the tip of a finger through, Thor heard a faint humming noise coming from inside. Coming from his brother.

“Loki, it is Thor. Odin is dead, I have been wanting to see you. I can now.” The humming stopped and Thor exchanged a glance with Heimdall. “I wanted to see if you were okay, brother.” The humming continued, this time even louder than before. “Brother!”

As soon as Thor yelled, a shrill laugh cut the air. “Oh, really? Can one be a brother if they’ve shown no evidence of brotherhood?”

The thunder God smiled in relief at his brother’s voice. “You are alive,” he breathed.

“Depends on your definition of alive, _brother_.” Loki sneered, still not sitting up. “Have you come to taunt me, is that it? You wanted to see if I was still alive, like a rat that you put in a trap? Tell me, did Odin really hate me so much as to throw me in here, no precursor whatsoever? He used to prefer making a whole lot of noise before he put someone in jail. It was a show of his power,” there was almost a cruel note to his voice. “I almost prefer it to waking up here in a cage.”

The two men on the outside of the box looked at one another and nodded. “Loki, do you remember what happened before you woke up in here?”

For the very first time there was a pause before Loki spoke, and then he let out a slow breath of air from his nose. “What, did I spoil another birthday party of yours? I don’t care what he put me in here for.”

Thor shifted almost awkwardly. “You had a scepter. Do you remember that?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Somehow, I have nothing in the world to do and yet still you manage to waste my time-“

“Loki, you were planning to kill Thanos.” Thor deadpanned.

“Oh, and Odin had such a problem with that? He hated Thanos-“

“No, I mean that Thanos found out and he sent you to do his dirty work. When you were pretending to try and win him over so that you could kill him, he gave you a Scepter and told you that it would help you take over Midgard—do you remember telling him that you would do that for him? You were going to kill him when you met him in person?”

Loki tared up at the ceiling, solid gray. There were no details to keep him occupied there, but he still locked eyes with it. His plan to kill Thanos, that great Giant of greed who did nothing but abuse his power…how could Thor know about that? He had done everything he could to hide his tracks. At this point, what good would it due to deny it? Thor had that god-awful note in his voice where he felt _pity_ , where he would do anything for him…even tell the truth.

“How do you know about that?” He asked, but Thor gave him nothing.

“Loki, do you remember him giving you the Scepter?”

“No!” Loki declared, finally sitting up. Cheeks flared, he faced Thor with anger burning in his fingertips. “Thanos never gave me a damned Scepter; I didn’t do whatever Odin told you I did!” He shouted. “That damned Ogre kept me locked in here because he was angry that I defied him, as always.”

Thor shifted in his boots. “No, Loki. Odin kept you locked in here because when Thanos gave you that Scepter, something in it—I cannot remember the name that we gave it, but it had something in it—and it made you lose your mind. You were under Thanos’ control.” Thor looked into his brother’s eyes and saw pain and frustration—searing, jerking frustration.  “He made you attack Midgard, but we thought that you were of your own free will. Thanos put you in exile because of it.

Loki turned on his feet, not wanting to see any more of this. “You are ridiculous. He actually told you that I attacked Midgard? Why would I attack a world full of rodents? They have nothing to offer me,” he grumbled. “Just let me out of here!”

“It’s true. Thanos hand you under his control-“

“Let me out!” Loki boomed, banging his hands against the bars just once. Shocks of pain went through his hands and he retracted them as if burnt.

Silence ensued for just a moment, and Thor took a step even closer, looking his brother straight in the eye. “I am sorry that I believed you would attempt to take Midgard, brother. I believe that you do not remember, but the Courts do not.” Thor lied. “They want a sign of good faith.”

“I have no good faith,” Loki panted, still recovering from the burning in his hands. “The Courts are all in Odin’s pockets, anyway. There’s nothing that I could say to convince them.”

“The Courts are now appointed by Heimdall, brother. The Courts are fair because Odin is dead.” Loki finally stopped pacing and faced his sibling, eyes dark. Odin…Odin could not be dead. It just wasn’t plausible. That man had been hanging by a thread for years, always too stubborn to just let go.  “The Courts will believe that you are good if you can help us.”

Loki resisted the urge to snort. God, he wouldn’t do anything that they wanted him to do. Never would he listen to them, but if he could trick his way out of here, this would be his only chance. He’d known it from the second that his brother had stepped foot in this place. “I have no magic when I am in this box.” He said, gesturing all around him. All of the signs of a healthy God were gone from him. His fingers were bone-thin and his cheeks were only red in anger. His whole frame was just _less_ than his body had previously been, as if his bones had shrunk when he’d lost his weight to the stress of being here. If he had his magic, he would be healthier than this.

“We want you to come to Midgard. There is an Omega there; he is sick. I believe that if anyone can heal him, it is you.”

“My magic is not to heal.”

“You are our last idea. Just try. If you can heal him, we will let you go. The Courts will have faith in you.”

Loki huffed another breath of air from his nose and shook his head. This…this was ridiculous. “I did not attack Midgard.”

“You did,” Thor told him. “You just don’t remember. Help me prove that you’re good; that you wouldn’t harm an Omega.”

“I never hurt an-“

“I know that you didn’t, a God can’t willingly. That was part of the proof I tried to offer. When you attacked New York, in Midgard, you hurt Omegas directly because it was truly _Thanos_ attacking them.”

Loki shook his head. No, no, no, he did not do that! “Is that not proof enough to them?”

“No. Even if you didn’t attack New York willingly, they’re still afraid that you’re evil, that the Scepter still has control of you. Looking at you now, I know that it doesn’t, but they need you to prove it! Help me prove it, brother. Help save this Omega.”

The last thing that he wanted to do was prove that something which did not happen, _did, in fact, not happen._ “You’ll let me out of this cage?” Thor nodded and Loki turned around so that he wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes. He was going to get out of here no matter what he did, and if that meant getting to Midgard and fighting his way out, he would do it. “Fine. Take me to this Omega.”

\----------------------------------------

They kept his chains on even as he was brought to Midgard. Loki could tell that they had extensively planned this because as he walked out to the platform where Heimdall stood in waiting, and he was shoved into a rainbow beam and shot over to another part of the universe, he landed perfectly on a helicopter pad of the Avengers Tower. He wasn’t sure how he recognized this place, but it felt like an itch on the back of his neck.

There was a crowd of people waiting for them, some in black-and-white suits, with little clear coils of wire leading into their ears, and some with high-tech guns pointed directly at his face. He paid them no mind, more intrigued by a metal man standing not far from him. _Iron Man,_ he was tempted to call him. But it barely seemed to be a man, staying completely silent as Thor led him forward towards them. Some robot made by a scientist, then. Perhaps Jane, the genius who Thor had told him about on the walk from the cage to Heimdall.

Wind gently barraged his hair, and sunlight touched his skin for the first time in years. If the situation was a little less tense, he may have taken a moment to bask in the warmth, but the metal giant walked forward, clanking as it went, and took a hold of his chains.

“Bucky is this way.” The giant said, and Loki couldn’t help but to stare.

“A speaking robot. I thought that this planet wasn’t sophisticated enough for that.” He said to Thor as they walked side-by-side. The robot dragged him a little harshly as they ushered him inside, down a staircase.

Thor smiled a little. “This is Stark. He is a man inside the robot.”

A little red-spot peeked out from the side of Loki’s vision and he turned to see, strangely enough, a human boy sticking to the side of the wall. Could humans do that? “It’s a metal suit of armor, actually.” The boy quipped.

“Is this-“ he looked towards Thor, “do you have a child here? What is a child doing in the middle of what is clearly a military operation?”

Peter lifted his head indignantly. “Hey! I’m fourteen!”

“Spider-Man,” the man in the Iron suit said, “do not go around telling me your age. Now keep going.”

With a sigh, Loki followed the apparent _man_ with armor around him through several staircases and down into the depths of the building. This place was peculiar, high-tech in almost alarming ways. If there were more magic here, it may have paralleled Asgard, though not in design. Details and furniture was sparse, as far as he could tell. Asgardians knew how to add more to a building than that.

“No one has actually told me what’s wrong with the Omega yet.” He said obnoxiously as they continued walking. “What if there’s nothing I can do to help? Will you just kill me?”

An orange-haired woman walking to his left answered, “I will.”

He scoffed. “I’m sorry, have we met? I’ve been on this planet two times and yet-“

“Thanos made you come down here, remember, Loki?” Thor reminded him. “These were the people who stopped you. Who stopped him.”

Loki soured. “Fine.”

“And no, we will not kill you. We just need you to help him. If you can fix him, you can go.”

The Trickster god began going through all of his options. Actually, curing him would be a risk. They could easily throw him back into the cage. He had no doubt that he could fix whatever they threw at him, but he had a creeping suspicion that if they were so desperate as to drag him up from the depths of hell that this was going to be a challenge of some sort. It wasn’t an option to fight his way out until they took the magic-blocking cuffs that they had on him. He wouldn’t be strong enough to get far with Thor around, and emotional manipulation would most likely not be an option with people around who only hated him.

As they neared the end of their walk, Loki mentally scrambled for something to get himself out of here. He didn’t have enough energy for a transformation, not enough to beat out Thor’s lightening. Making an apparition of himself wouldn’t work at any point in which he was so surrounded, as he had been since they had gotten him out of the cage. He could tell them that if they wanted the Omega to stay healthy, they would need him to keep re-healing him every day. They might be forced to keep him here, then, and he never wanted to be around this damned place ever again.

They walked past a hallway where-

_Screaming into his hands, Loki bent at the knees and folded like a piece of paper. He tried to fight the crawling sensation of claws around his mind, scrapign the edges of his skull, but they were wrapped too tightly. They wouldn’t let him go. They were keeping him here on this damned planet, keeping him from killing that ugly purple giant!_

Loki stopped in his tracks. A memory! A real memory.

“Brother,” Thor said in a warning voice and he looked up. “Keep walking.”

“I remember this hallway.” He said, still not going. “I _was_ here. And there…I couldn’t kill him…” He murmured. Before anyone could ask anything else, Stark pulled him forward roughly and they kept moving. Thor looked at him worriedly all the while they walked, but they were eventually done.

They opened a final set of doors to display what looked like a workshop, cleaned out of all mechanical parts to leave a bare, metal room. Like that damned cage. Loki’s hackled rose and the Alpha shook his head.

“Must we do this here? A sick Omega should be in a bedroom.” He mumbled.

Thor shook his head. “They thought it better to do it here.” Finally, he walked forward, leaving Loki’s side, and gestured to the two people in the middle of the room, a tall Blonde Alpha and an Omega, looking as if he was withering away. No doubt that was the sick one. “Brother, this is Bucky and Steve. Bucky is a human, but he was injected with a Super Soldier Serum which is now having side effects. It is as if he is feeling the effects of aging, but he looks the same.”

Loki glanced around him to see if anyone was going to release his chains. Nothing. With a grunt he took them into his hands and walked forward, as no one was going to help him. “How old are you?” He asked. Maybe this was another strange child they saw fit to bring along to a governmental secret.

“A hundred and two.” The Omega grunted.

“Oh. Well, no. You don’t look like a hundred-and-two-year-old. You feel like one, then?”

“Feels like I’m fuckin’ dying.”

Loki couldn’t help but to smirk. Ah, he had missed swearing. Hearing it come from an Omega just made it better. He turned to his captors. “If I need to feel his energy, I need my magic.”

He watched for a moment as the group exchanged glances and reached forward to unhitch his binds. They clanked and banged and finally opened in front of him.

Magic flooded his veins and he bent his head back in relief. His veins were racing with blood once again and his eyes could focus on what was in front of him for the very first time. He could see the dents in the bolts on the chair that the Omega was seated in. He could hear the cells in his body working once again, and he looked down at his hands to see his skin regain color right in front of his very eyes.

He stretched his hands and his legs and a hand prodded him from behind. “Fix him now.” The orange-haired girl said, and Loki rolled his eyes just a little. He wasn’t going to let her rude behavior ruin this moment.

He sighed quietly, as if he could finally remember what it felt like to be content with the world again. “Ah,” he laughed. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to feel my magic again,” he fixed his gaze on the Omega before him, shaking and pale. It was hard not to feel something when looking at him.

Loki glanced up at Thor. Was he really just going to let him go? “You’ll let me go?”

“We’ll bring you back to Asgard. You can go anywhere you want from there, or you can stay. You just can’t be in Midgard. For you own safety. No one knows about Thanos here; they will kill you.”

He smiled. “That’s reassuring.” It felt nice to hear something normal. Ignorant and angry humans, being allowed to roam about the universe…that was his ideal life. He finally walked towards the Omega, not before looking at the Alpha standing behind the poor, sick boy. He was tall and brooding, muscles protruding from his shirt as he flexed from anger. God, Loki hated that energy around him. “You can stand down, I can’t harm an Omega anyway,” he breathed before crouching down and holding a hand out to the Omega. He looked directly to Bucky, “I need to touch your hand, to feel your energy.” He didn’t enjoy being the one to reach out first, knowing that it would feel nothing but threatening.

Bucky eyed him warily for just a second before putting his hand into Loki’s.

The God felt it all. The energy draining away, the pulse in the bottom of his feet, his lungs constricting every time that he walked. Yes, this would not be a pleasant way to live. Finally, he opened his eyes. “You are in an extreme state of discomfort. Ironically enough, it was the botched serum which has kept you alive from the effects _of the botched serum_ ,” he noted as he began to inspect the Omega’s wrist.

Truly, though he hated to admit it, it seemed that this would take two days. In these cases, when energy is being drained from a person, Loki could bring it back, but it would take time. He got to his feet, trying to decide how he would explain it. “I can help.”

Bucky perked up just slightly. “You can?”

“Yes, but it will take three nights. I can begin now. I’ll start by reversing some of the damage that it has already done. That will bring you back to as you were before the Super-Serum. I need to move on to the second stage exactly the night after; if I do not work to then restore further so that you are again in your Super Soldier state, you will die within two days. After you are in your Super Soldier state, I will restore your energy once again. Otherwise, this problem will just keep occurring.”

The angry humans appeared to be somewhat pacified by that. “Okay,” the Omega said. “So you can do it now? Three days and I’ll be okay?”

“Three nights, tonight being one of them. Of course, I cannot work _here_.” He gestured around the solid metal and concrete room that they were in. “I will need sunlight, and you will need privacy. A room with windows will do. Or a skylight.”

The man in the metal suit, Stark, lowered one of his arms which was pointed at Loki, a sort of gun attached to the end. “We’re not taking you anywhere.”

“Then your friend will die.” Loki glanced around. “I do not know what to tell you, Stark. I need light. We can go up to the rooftop again, but it would not be a good place to bring a frail Omega for a spell. He needs a bed and privacy. Preferably with only his Alpha there.”

They all grumbled. “No way,” Steve said. “You’re just going to run away.”

“Wh-“ Loki scoffed, “by asking to stay indoors? Oh, I’m trying to stop your Omega from dying. That’s what you all want, right? Well, I want to be _left alone_ and that won’t happen unless I can get Asgard off my back, so our only option is a room with windows and a bed!”

* * *

 

“What are you going to do with him while he’s here? We can’t have him wandering around.” Bruce asked, sitting in a faraway room in the Tower. He and Clint wanted to be as far away from Loki as possible, so they were holed up watching the security footage and having FRIDAY analyze everything about the situation.

Tony plopped down in a seat across from them, having just left Thor, Steve, and Fury’s team to look over Loki. So far, everything seemed in-place. “He’ll stay in Thor’s room.”

“With the cuffs off?” Clint asked.

“He said if we did he’d have to start all over. Besides, we’re keeping everyone as far away as they can be.” Tony knew it was no consolation. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to the farm for a few days?”

Clint seemed to squirm in his seat. “I might.”

“I’d go too but I don’t want to be missing if I could help.” Bruce said. “Natasha didn’t really want me here around him, but…”

Tony ran a hand over his face and released a sigh of pure tension. “He’s in my Tower again. This place’s supposed to be safe but he’s here again…”

“Yeah, I know.” Clint muttered. “You really think that it’s all done with, that you can move on, and then he comes back again. I can’t believe they’re really going to let him go.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. I read through all Asgardian laws with FRIDAY yesterday and found nothing I could use. Apparently, the whole him killing an Omega thing proved that it was really Thanos. True intent of harm against Omegas just isn’t possible.”

“But it is for this Thanos guy?”

“He has no orientation, apparently. He’s just…an evil _grape_ as Thor said.”

Tony was curled up in a huddle of blankets on the leather seat, facing a hologram of security footage, watching all the while as Loki, in an empty bedroom on the seventeenth floor, stood above Bucky and waved his hands, symbols appearing in the air.

“He must know that Thor really means to let him go.” It had to be the only reason he was going along with this. A trickster God could surely find a way out of this with his cuffs off.

“And that Natasha will really kill him if he doesn’t help.”

“That too.” Clint sighed. “He’s just going to stay in Thor’s bedroom?”

“Thor doesn’t fall asleep easily. He said he’d keep an eye on Loki.”

“Will that be enough?”

“No. We just…we just have to _hope_ I guess.” He said hopelessly. “We just have to hope that this guy isn’t going to kill us all.”

\----------------------------------------

They stayed there to watch the footage until they all escorted him to Thor’s room, which was already God-proofed in case he accidentally went to sleep-walk again. Last time that had happened, he had electrocuted the fridge by running into it and getting surprised.

After that, Tony climbed back out of his suit—he had put it back on for the escort—and walked down into the kitchen. He wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. This whole place was his den, really, and he shouldn’t feel safe with a stranger in it. It…it wasn’t as bad as he thought having Loki here would be, but he was already anxious from a day of being tense.

Maybe it was just better to keep your enemies closer.

He reached into the fridge and pulled out a piece of hold pizza, knowing that if Bucky were awake and well like he had been a year ago, he would’ve gagged out loud at the sight. Tony smiled to himself slightly.

He sat there and ate for another hour or so before he heard a clattering sound from around the corner. “Don’t shoot me,” came Loki’s voice and Tony immediately called a gauntlet to his hands. Loki walked around the side wall like a cat stalking its prey, all spindly and particular. “My powers are harder to keep in check since they were taken away from me for years,” he said, holding his hands in front of him as a sign of innocence. “Thor snored, and his door opened up. I can do that when I have the strength, but right now I only have the inconsistency.”

Tony’s heart thudded dangerously in his chest. “Stay back.”

“I mean no harm. Not that I could anyway. I just want food. My idiotic brother forgets that I need to eat.”

Tony stared at him for a moment before stepping out of the way and pointing to the fridge. “Get whatever you want, we’re bringing you back to the basement. FRI, call everyone.”

Loki sighed and continued to go towards the food. It was all strange and foreign to him; he wasn’t sure how to eat this triangle, but they smelled good. Shrugging, he lifted it to his mouth and took a bite. “No need to rush. I’m sure they’re all sleeping.”

“How did you unlock the door?”

“Magic. I couldn’t really control it, though. But I wasn’t going to stay in there with Thor’s snoring. I’m sure you can relate.” He breathed. “That’s what happens when Odin locks a God up for years on end. My powers get sporadic. I can help your friend, but I need to use them more than that. Otherwise, I’ll just accidentally unlock whatever basement you’ve got too.”

Tony’s eyes widened.

“I’m not trying to threaten you, I’m trying to warn you so you know not to shoot me when the door opens next time.” He took another bite and swallowed eagerly. “Don’t you think that I would have left already if I was going to? My brother would just find me again; he’s got Heimdall on his side, remember? The man sees everything.”

The Omega was almost shaking with anxiety. “So, what? You can’t help but to walk into my kitchen?”

“Is this a kitchen? I couldn’t tell. I was just walking towards the smell of food,” Loki said nonchalantly. “My only intentions are to heal your friend and move on. You’re of no concern to me. I’m not sure what I did here when Thanos was fucking with my head, but I’ll do it to him next.”

“You’re going to go after him?”

“Why would I be here for longer than I needed to when Thanos is out walking around still killing whomever he pleases?”

“Why does it bother you so much?”

“Would it not bother you?”

“It would bother me because of the innocent lives he takes. What does it bother you for?”

Loki smiled sourly. “I’m just born petty is all,” he said sarcastically, “he’s taking over all the planets that are _mine to take_ ,” he rasped, rolling his eyes. “You and I have never really met, don’t forget. I play tricks, I don’t do what Thanos does. Just because you’ve seen someone else in my skin do it does not mean that I am him.” Loki sighed. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, the spell on your Omega friend will only be hindered if I have my chains on for more than an hour. You can put them on while I eat near you, that way you know I won’t be doing any magic, yeah? Then your friends can go take me to your basement with them off. Sound better?” He nodded towards the chains, which were splayed out on the kitchen counter like long centipedes that no one wanted near them. Everyone was wary of magic.

Tony eyed him curiously, but moved forward anyway and put the shackles across Loki’s wrists. The God almost shook with dread as they were put back on, but at least this way he would be able to eat in peace, even if it meant having to feel that awful drain of energy. One hour wouldn’t do much.

With that, everyone else came running into the room, guns raised, and Loki lifted his hands, pizza still in one. “Well, we’re all just social tonight, aren’t we? Come to join the party? We have this strange bread.” He lifted up his pizza.

“Hands up!”

Loki rolled his eyes once again. “Yeah, no. You’re not going to kill me and I’m not going anywhere. I have an Omega to heal and a stomach to fill, okay?”

Fury himself had a gun pointed at Loki. “Put the food down.”

“No, I’m eating.” Loki sighed. “Look, you can point your guns at me the whole time I’m here, I don’t care. I’m waiting until the Omega is better so that my brother will leave me alone. Understand?”

Tony glanced over at them. “He said we could keep the chains on for under an hour while he ate and then we could take him back down to the basement.” He said quietly, as if he was in awe of the situation.

They all looked back to the God. “How did you get out?” Fury asked as if this was an interrogation.

Loki seemed to be taking it much less seriously, chewing his food and watching with boredom glinting in his eyes. “See, what happens when you lock a _God_ up without their powers for years is that when they can finally use them, it all comes out fast. I can control what I _do_ do, as I can control my healing your friend, but I can’t control what I _don’t_ do. Thor was snoring and I wanted to sleep somewhere without him, so the door opened up.”

Natasha swore. “Take him down to the basement-“

Loki held up a hand. “That door will just open too. It’s out of all of our control, okay? Now I don’t know what you all have against me, I don’t remember it, but all that I want to do is eat, fix the Omega, and leave. You can sit here and watch me eat if you want, but if your friend’s going to get healed then I need energy. I need food and I need to sleep somewhere that Thor isn’t snoring in.” His voice the whole time was monotone, as if this was nothing but an inconvenience. “We _all_ wish I wasn’t here, therefore we all want me to leave. So, let’s just make this as efficient as possible, yes? I have no reason to run away when I know my brother will leave me alone after this. I have two days until freedom and you have two days before you’ll never see me again. Let us all just agree that we want those days to go by as quickly as possible, yes?”

“You’ve given us no reason to trust you.” Natasha said, as if she’d trust him even with a good reason. She never truly trusted anyone but Bruce, and that was only because they were mates.

“And you’ve given me no reason to trust you. You have had your guns pointed at me this whole time, and every time that a door opens and I can’t control it, you’re going to threaten to shoot me. I’m just proposing that I will try not to open doors and leave, and you will not shoot me. Do you think you can live with that?” He asked, not caring at all if he sounded rude. These people deserved for him to be rude to him.

Natasha turned around and had everyone else stand down. She offered Loki no response besides a command. “Eat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think! I've gotten so many long comments and it makes it so much more fun to write and to go through this story, so thank you for each and every comment. If you want more of my writing or you want to see more about me, you can find me on my [tumblr](http://starkmarks.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmmm revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw that I had some loki defenders in the comments. tell me what you think of this

It was uncomfortable having people watch him as he ate and slept, but Loki grew used to it. The red-haired woman who had offered no introduction was there no matter what, and typically accompanied by at least two of the government agents—Loki didn’t know where they were from—and Thor, there to make small talk about Jane. Occasionally Loki would be blessed with the presence of the black-haired Omega who owned the Tower, but they usually only ran into one another late at night in the living room. That was when Stark, the Omega, went down for food in the kitchen, and when Loki was paging through the Midgardian technology which had little to offer him.

Loki found himself wishing that Thor would shut up when the Omega was around. Maybe it was that he’d been isolated for so long or perhaps he truly did have a _crush_ on this man, but Loki was tempted to watch him. He wanted to take in every detail of this fascinating Omega, but that only resulted in him looking away from him to compensate for it. He was probably coming off as rude. When was the last time a crush made him act like such a child?

One night, his second night, he was sitting on one of the far couches which smelled like there was no one person who kept it as their usual spot—he didn’t like feeling as if he was intruding—and the usual group of people was gone. Thor was upstairs, probably snoring so loud that the bed shook, and the Orange-haired girl was spying on him from the kitchen. This time, though, Stark came straight for him.

“Loki,” the God lifted his head in surprise. No one had said his name but Thor. Stark was walking closer to him, then he was sitting down across from him, still tense but looking determined. This was certainly curious. The Omega had something important enough to say that he was actually going to come into contact with him… _direct_ contact… “is there any way that you can tell if this might happen with Steve?”

The God raised a brow. “You mean because he was also injected with a Super Soldier Serum?” Stark nodded and Loki hummed. He already knew the answer, but it was nice to prolong their discussions. He quite liked talking to this man. “No. I don’t know about the Serums that your people have made, I can only feel Energy. I can feel when it’s being drained from someone. I can’t be sure if it will happen in the future, I can only know if it’s happening now.”

“…and it’s not?” Tony looked almost a little disappointed, but not quite. He was…wary.

Something tugged at Loki’s heartstrings. Ah, yes... the Omega was worried about his friends. How sweet. “No reason to worry about your friend. As far as I can feel, everything is going according to the plan. Bucky is still sleeping?”

Now it was Tony’s turn to raise a brow. Loki had never called Bucky anything but _the Omega_ before. “Yes.”

“Good. He should rest.” They had just gone through the second stage and everyone was eager for this to end, Loki most of all. As long as Bucky slept and Steve took care of him, everything was going to be over soon enough. “You are worried about your friends.” Loki observed.

Tony frowned, a little defensive. “Of course.”

“It drains you of your energy, worrying about them does.”

He huffed. “Well, ‘m not going to stop anytime soon.” He got to his feet with a sigh and stretched his arms out in front of me. “Thank you for doing this.” He said as if the praise was a test.

Loki paused. “…you’re welcome.” And then he leaned forward. He had been wondering so often, with nothing better to do here… perhaps he could use. “No one has told me what it is that I did here, why everyone wants me dead. Was it _here_ that I was acting under Thanos? In the Tower? It seems to be a territorial issue.” He could tell with humans when they were bothered based on territory, based on intrusion. It irked them in a special kind of way, and Loki could feel it from miles off. Every single one of the humans who apparently lived here felt personally attacked by his mere presence, even if he himself didn’t want to be here either.

The Omega look wary once again and Loki almost regretted asking in the first place. It wasn’t good to see him look upset. It seemed so unfitting for a pretty face. “Yes. It was here.” That was all he said before he walked off.

Loki sighed and turned to the orange-haired woman. “Were you here when I attacked New York?” He had learned the name of the specific City that he had acted against. There were details about it on the _news_ that he saw on the television.

She just looked away from him.

* * *

 

On the second morning of him being at the Tower, exactly ten hours after his exchange with Tony, Loki stood in the kitchen, wearing his shackles as he always did when the Omega was around, and looked through this _fridge_ that they had. It was strange. On Asgard they relied not on technology to cool their foods but on magic.

He took out a tub of something which looked like noodles and grabbed a fork. The child, the fourteen-year-old one who Loki had overheard fighting with Stark about being in the Tower while Loki was there, looked over at the God in horror from where he was sitting at the counter. “Uh, aren’t you going to heat that up, Mr. Loki?” He asked, not sounding snarky like usual but…weirded out.

“I have the shackles on, I can’t heat it up.” Loki replied.

“Huh? Just use the microwave.”

“I don’t know what that is.” He said, looking around to all of the metal in the kitchen. “You have too much technology here, no magic…” he grumbled.

Peter resisted the urge to laugh and hopped over to the God. It was the first exchange he’d had with anyone which didn’t include yelling or repressed anger. He just took the container from the God’s hands and set it into the metal box which was eye-level with him. “You can type in the numbers, and it heats it up for that long. I just press the _add thirty seconds_ button, though. It’s faster.”

“How do you know how hot it will be?” Loki asked as Peter pressed the enter button and his food began to rotate on top of a plate.

“I don’t know. They’re all pretty much the same.”

Loki frowned. “On Asgard we just _do it._ You have to wait here.”

Peter chuckled. “Oh, how dare we have to wait to eat.” He said sarcastically. “Y’know, you’re pretty spoiled for someone who was in prison.”

“You’re pretty loud for someone who’s so short.”

“I am not short!” He yelled.

Tony sighed. “Peter, it’s too early for you to be yelling,” he yawned and reached beside Loki to get into the fridge. The God stepped out of the way courteously.

“You’re the one who makes the technology, right, Stark?” He asked as soon as his food was done _microwaving_. The Omega nodded. “What would you use to kill a giant God? I’m going after Thanos and I won’t have the element of surprise.”

The Omega seemed just barely interested in the conversation, but there was a twinkle in his eye at being presented with a challenge. However, this was Loki, and he hated that the man seemed comfortable in a home that wasn’t his. “A very big gun.” He told Loki and turned around.

Loki wasn’t about to give up. “Do you have a very big gun that I could borrow when I get out of here, then? Otherwise I’ll just steal one from your government friends over there,” he nodded towards Fury on the other side of the room. The man just frowned. “I’m sure they already saw that coming, considering that I have nothing but my clothes, but they still won’t be able to stop me. It’ll create much less of a mess if I just have one given to me.”

“Steal from SHIELD, I don’t care.”

“None of you seem to like SHIELD very much. Is it because they’re arrogant? They seem arrogant.” Loki mused aloud as he watched the Agents frown back at him. “The news channel of yours didn’t list the people who found your Captain America when he came up from the ice. Were you the ones to find him?” He finally asked the agents directly.

“That’s classified.” Fury deadpanned.

Loki grinned. “Ah, yes. Arrogance.” Peter took a long sip of his water, trying not to laugh. Natasha glared at him. Finally, Loki looked back over at Stark. “I don’t have any of your human money, but I do need something to kill Thanos with. If you built me something to use against him, I could…I could put a protection field around your tower.” He offered.

Tony didn’t even look at him, sipping coffee and staring down at his tablet. “I don’t build weapons.”

“What about your Iron Suit? Didn’t you build that?”

“That’s not a weapon.”

Loki shrugged. “Then could you build me…something for defense? Something giant-evil-purple-man-proof?”

Peter piped up, “what is it that you’re trying to kill again?”

“Thanos.” Loki supplied easily. “He is everything that is wrong with the universe three times over. Like Odin, if Odin had the capability to commit genocide over and over again. Odin was too weak for that and wouldn’t make a profit off of it, so he wouldn’t have gotten involved. Thanos, however, is more than likely to try and kill off whole planets.” The God grumbled. “Plus, he stole my brains right out of my head and now I want him dead.”

“Genocide _is_ bad,” Peter reasoned. “He was the one who had you… _under the influence_?”

“That damned Scepter, yes. Anyway, I’m going to kill him right away, I just need the right tools. I’ve been planning it for years, but I would prefer something faster than what I’ve currently got.”

Peter raised a brow. “What do you have planned?”

“I’m fairly sure that if I breathed the words, he would hear them, so I won’t say anything. But it’s a solid plan. It’s just time-consuming. I’ve spent too much time waiting; I need to act now.”

The teenager seemed intrigued by this. “So…” he looked around to see if anyone was going to yell at him for talking to Loki too much, but found that everyone was just pretending not to listen. Maybe these were the questions that they all wanted to ask, but didn't because it would make them look weak. Well, Peter wasn’t at all afraid of being weak. “would Thanos ever try to come to earth to kill people?”

“Not if he’s already dead.” Loki said simply.

Peter hummed. He wanted to suggest that they help, but this was widely out of his range of usual _I’ll say this even though there’s a chance that Mr. Stark will be mad because I know that he’ll still be nice to me afterwards_ zone. Mr. Stark might not be so nice after he suggests teaming up with someone that they all actively hate.

“But…he already kind of did attack Earth, right?” Natasha raised her head at Peter’s question, as if he was traveling into dangerous territory. “Like, if he sent you down then that also counts.” He rushed through, trying to explain his thought process.

“I suppose.” The God replied. “I believe that was more to get rid of me than to get rid of Earth, though. Genocide is his specialty; he wouldn’t have done something so small-scale unless it was to get rid of me.”

Peter shifted. “So you really don’t remember anything that happened here?”

“No. Were you there that day?”

“I just saw everything on TV. My Aunt made me stay inside. I wasn’t one of the ones who had to evacuate.” He mumbled.

Loki frowned. “ _Evacuate_? I thought it was me coming down scaring a bunch of humans with magic, like usual. People had to _evacuate_?”

“Well it was an invasion-“

“Peter, that’s enough.” Tony finally said. “If he doesn’t remember, he doesn’t remember. Let’s move on.”

Loki scoffed. “You try waking up and not remembering what your body was out doing. How the hell did I invade an entire planet?”

Tony shook his head. “You brought down an alien army on us. We had to fight off each and every one and then get to you. So yeah, people had to evacuate.” Tony bit. “Just…quit asking questions about it. Like you said, it wasn’t even you.”

* * *

The second night that he was at the Tower, Loki was finalizing his plans to kill Thanos. The humans had given him what they called a _white board_ , which he drew diagrams on and tried to put down every bit of his plan on. Every detail would have to be perfect. He stood there like a madman going over every single thing which could go wrong.

Peter—Loki had learned his name finally—was watching curiously from the kitchen. As usual when the child was around, Stark stood nearby, watching over like the mother hen that he was. Honestly, it was cute.

“What if you attack from above?” Peter suggested. “That’s the best attack in video games; they never see you coming.”

“I’ve already thought of that. If I wanted to do that, I’d need an updated layout of his lair from his daughter, and it’s hard to get a hold of her when she’s so far away and I’m busy here…” he said.

That definitely piqued Peter’s interest. This strange God—and a _forbidden_ God, which was so much hotter—was the center of his attention. He watched him with intense curiosity, observing his light muscle which was coming back as he had the cuffs on less and less to his ruffled black hair, tied back in a bun while he worked. He was certainly an intriguing Alpha.

“Are you friends with Thanos’ daughter?”

“Sort of.”

Peter grinned. “Does that mean you used to be mates?”

The God just chuckled. “She’s not much the _dating_ type. Besides, Gods don’t date. It’s all finding mates and staying together forever,” he said as if it was a joke.

The boy walked closer, sitting on the couch two feet away, like he was talking to a friend. “How come you haven’t found your mate? Thor said he looked for his everywhere before he found his.” He glanced at Loki’s long sleeves, covering up where his mating mark was, somewhere under the cloth.

“How come you haven’t found yours?” Loki threw back good-naturedly.

“I don’t even have a mark yet, I’m a kid. Don’t you have a mark?”

“Doesn’t really seem like any of your business.”

Peter frowned. “The less you tell me, the more curious I get,” he snickered. “But whatever, guess I’ll just go on thinking about how to kill the Evil Grape.”

With a sigh, Loki stretched his arms and leaned his head back. He had gone from sitting in a cell to standing in a living room, which wasn’t much better. His back was screaming at him to sit down, but he wouldn’t be able to reach the board as well, and he needed to have a solid plan by the time that he was done healing the Omega.

“Two more hours before I heal him for the last time,” he said happily. “Then I’ll be able to leave…”

“Where are you gonna go after you kill Thanos?” Peter asked. “Is there, like, a nice vacation planet?”

It was a little amusing to talk to a human child. They were less annoying than Asgardian children, all determined to be as great as those who came before them. Peter was less righteous. “I haven’t thought that far. Maybe I’ll go find myself a place on a desert planet.”

Peter scrunched up his nose. “A _desert planet_? Isn’t there, like, a tropical island planet?”

“No.”

“I would want to make a tropical island planet, then…Hey, if you’re a god, does that mean you can create stuff out of thin air?” He asked, face lighting up. When Loki nodded, Peter gasped and jumped to his feet. “Oh my God! Oh, oh, can you make me money?!”

Loki rolled his eyes. “No.”

“Ah! Please!”

“Peter, he’s not going to make you a bunch of money. That’d cause inflation.” Tony said from the kitchen.

“I don’t care! We wouldn’t need much! Just enough for my Aunt to take a Break!”

Loki shook his head. “I only know what money looks like from your _Russia_. I have not seen New York money.”

Peter tried not to snicker. “It’s _U.S. money_.”

“Same thing.” Loki waved his hand dismissively and stared up at his board. “I should go through this again on another board. Stark, do you think you have another board?” He asked, finally looking directly at the man who he had been avoiding. He would have just summoned another for himself, but those damned shackles were preventing him from creating objects just as they were reassuring the paranoid humans.

Tony was leaning against the kitchen counter drinking even more coffee and looking down at another glowing screen. He barely looked up before reaching out beside him and pulling out a second whiteboard from behind him. This was where Steve and Bucky had everyone add to grocery lists, because not only did they prefer things hand-written and tangible, but they liked to go buy groceries themselves.

He walked it over to Loki, hand at the top of the board, rolling on wheels. Loki reached out to take it from him, fingers extended, when a dry _SNAP_ banged through the air and they were both thrown back. Startled, Peter screamed and the Agents ran forward with their guns pointed forwards.

“What was that?!” Peter yelled, and Loki sat up groggily.

“Fucking hurt,” Loki mumbled and rubbed his head, opening his eyes slowly. He put his hands flat on the ground beside him, meaning to push himself up off the ground where he had landed next to the sofa. They-oh! His hands were _white_! They were glowing white! They were glowing with the mate bond! His head shot up and he looked over to the Omega who had fallen over with him. “S-Stark?”

Tony was already on his feet, looking at him with wide eyes. He was dumbfounded, saying nothing and letting Natasha step in front of him.

“M…mate?”

* * *

 Tony was shaking fervently, only able to hold the glass of water in his hand because Bruce was assisting him. “Just drink, just get some water…” the other man soothed him as he supported his weight on one arm.

Loki was still standing where he had been, running his hands over his forehead and hair, trying to make sense of what had just happened. This Omega—this _Tony Stark_ —was _his_ Omega? His soulmate? His once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?

Steve came dashing down the stairs just in time, wearing only gym shorts and a tight t-shirt, clearly having woken up from his sleep. “What’s going on?!” He demanded, facing Loki. The God offered no reply, bracing himself against the unstable whiteboard and staring straight ahead. This…Tony Stark was his Omega? Tony who hated him?

The Super Soldier ran over to Tony, placing a hand on his back. “What’s wrong, Tony? What happened?” He asked, voice moving the speed of light.

Tony’s teeth chattered as he leaned against the men all around him. _It doesn’t make sense…it doesn’t make sense…_ “Th…He’s my mate?” It wasn't a statement.

Everyone in the room looked over to the God standing at the front of the room, watching and waiting for him to make a move. He spared them one glance, slowly moving his head to face his whiteboard. Before anyone could demand answers from him, FRIDAY spoke from the speakers.

 _“Two things, Boss: I have confirmed the bond between you and Loki using our secure Mate Testing. Also, it is time that Loki go to Bucky’s room for the final round of Curing. If he does not begin within the next ten minutes, Bucky will feel the effects of aging once again.”_ The AI spoke, and Loki finally looked up. Each person was staring at him with wide eyes, completely void of any idea how to act.

Then he saw Tony. Tony looked absolutely shell-shocked, as if the mate bond between them had been electrocuting. Perhaps it had been; bonds between Gods and Midgardians were surely too strong for a weak body like a human’s to handle. So…so what could he do? What was Loki supposed to do now?

He croaked, “I have to go Cure him again.” When no one replied, all in shock, he began to walk up the staircase, alone for the first time. Steve was the only one to follow, driven by the need to protect Bucky. The second that they were out of earshot, he shoved Loki against the wall. The God allowed it to happen, too shaken to think of anything else.

“Are you really Tony’s mate?”

The question released him from his daze and left him instead in a state of confusion. “I…I think? We…he handed me a board and there was…there was a _snap_. Like there’s supposed to be…” he muttered.

“Did you do it?!” Steve said vigorously. “Did you make that?”

“What?”

“Did you create that Snap?! I swear to God if you’re just fucking with Tony I will-“

“I have my cuffs on. I can’t do anything…otherwise I would also suspect that it was my powers…” he was nearly whispering to himself at this point. “How is it possible, if I already fought him before when Thanos attacked New York? Would the bond not have activated because it was not truly me? Bonds are supposed to be activated physically…it should have happened earlier…”

Steve blinked slowly, breathing hard as he watched for any sign that the trickster was lying. “You never touched Tony when you attacked New York. Natasha was the one who stopped you.”

Loki was almost panting with the effort of staying upright. His mind was swirling, unfocused and dangerous. “I…He is my _mate_. I have my _mate_ …”

Before Steve could growl at even the thought of that, the Tower’s AI once again interrupted. _“Sirs, it is imperative that you get to Bucky. We have only minutes before he will be in danger.”_

This pushed them both out of their daze, and Steve prodded the God the rest of the way up the staircase. “We’ll deal with this later. For now, you have to go heal Bucky.”

* * *

This threw all of Loki’s plans off. He needed to go to Thanos now. He needed to kill an enemy, not gain a mate. He was set to meet Nebula in just days, hopefully to find her before he killed Thanos. She deserved to be a part of it, as they had initially wanted. Or perhaps she had already killed him, Loki wasn’t sure…

He sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. As if he were watching a tiger in a cage, Peter neared the God slowly and stared at him intensely. “…Mr. Loki?” The God didn’t respond. “…Are you really Mr. Stark’s mate?”

The God breathed out slowly. “I…yes. I am. And…and I have to kill Thanos.” He whispered.

“What?”

 _“I have to kill Thanos.”_ Loki stated, this time loudly, as if he had come to some sort of clarification in his mind. He slowly got to his feet and looked around. “I…I healed your friend. Now…now I am supposed to go. I _have_ to go. Thanos is out there in deep space,” his words faltered. He…he _couldn’t_ leave. Not when his mate was here. “W-where is Stark?”

“I’m right here,” came a quiet voice from behind him, and he twirled around to find Tony in waiting, holding a bundle of soft blankets in his arms. He looked like a real Omega like this, all wrapped around something warm and gentle. Loki found himself wishing that he could always see him curled up among the blankets, forever taken care of. Loki wanted to take care of him. “Hi.” Tony said, shifting from foot to foot.

Out of respect, all of the Agents left except for Fury, and Natasha dragged Peter from the room so that it would be just Bruce look over him.

Loki looked to his mate. “I am supposed to be leaving for Thanos now.” He said. He wasn’t sure what he wanted Tony to say, if he wanted him to be sad or to let him go without a fight, but he didn’t want the man to be silent. He wanted him to do  _something_.

“I…but we just…found out…” Tony murmured timidly. “But we...we just found…” it would sound too dramatic to say that they had just found one another, but that was the truth. Maybe Tony couldn’t comprehend what was going on, maybe he was in too much of a frenzy to realize that he still didn’t trust Loki, that Loki had hurt Clint, but he still didn’t want him to go. It had _just_ happened! How could he walk off now before they even figured this out. “You...you can’t go when this has _just_ happened.”

Loki looked down. “Do you want me to stay?”

The question was a little startling. Loki was still the enemy. Did Tony really want to ask him to stay when he had been so insistent on never seeing him in the first place?

“I want to figure this out,” Tony said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You… we’re _mates,_ right?”

Loki stared at him. “Yes...so… we should figure this out… I…. what does that mean?”

Tony sighed. He didn’t know! He didn’t know what it meant to figure things out. He sat down gently on the couch and looked at his-his mate. Loki sat down in front of him.

“Do you really not remember the attack on New York? Thanos was controlling you?” This was important. He couldn’t trust anyone who had done that willingly.

“I remember going to kill Thanos, then I woke up in a cage.” He sighed. “I didn’t even know what I did.”

Tony sighed. Was that good? It meant that if it was true, his mate wasn’t evil. At least, not for that reason.

A mate was a guarantee—the only guarantee in life. There was someone for everyone: that was the only thing that each person knew. Tony going without having one for so long had left him damaged nearly beyond repair, thinking that he was the one person in the world who was undeserving of a mate. He had supposed that it made sense, seeing as he was responsible for the rise of death and war in foreign countries, but it had just made him hate himself.

Now? Now he had a mate? What did it mean that his mate was also a second-hand killer? Loki’s hands had killed, but not his will. Tony’s actions had killed, but he never touched any of his victims. Were they…did they almost _fit_? Two people who maybe didn’t deserve mates, but suddenly the Universe realized that they were meant to be?

“I…I didn’t think that I would have a mate,” the mechanic said shakily. “I thought it was just me because I made weapons that killed people, but… but _we’re_ mates.” He marveled aloud. “I…you can’t leave for Thanos. You can’t. Not when we’ve just found each other.” Tony lifted his head to look around the room and gesture to the Tower around him. “Stay. Just until we can figure things out. Don’t go to Thanos yet.”

The Omegas eyes were pleading, full of fear that his mate would leave. Loki squirmed in his seat. He wasn’t used to all of this _emotion_. He’d been by himself for years. “I’ll stay. Do…do you really want me to stay here? This is your den, I know. And I…well, I attacked it before, I guess. It looked like me. Technically was.”

Tony bit his lip. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I make your friends uncomfortable. And that makes _you_ uncomfortable. I can’t stay if it will bother you.” He said. “I…I can come back during the day, spend nights somewhere else. I won’t go to Thanos yet. We can figure this out first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do all continuations for stories through my [tumblr](https://starkmarks.tumblr.com/), so if you like this story and you want more, you should check out my tumblr!
> 
> Thank you all for your support and I hope you're looking forward to the next chapter!


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now they know they're mates

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is super unedited and will have things that are wrong, but I just wanted to get this chapter out because it's a few days late. I hope that you like it.

For the very first time since meeting, Loki sat with his mate alone. It was once day since they’d found each other, and Loki was back on Earth to see him.

The Omega was clearly nervous, a little jittery either because of all the coffee he’d had or because he’d found his mate, and it put the God on edge. He didn’t know Tony well enough to be sure how to help, and he didn’t want to accidentally make things worse. All he ever did was make things worse.

Tony reverted to his hosting instincts, getting Loki a water while they sat at the kitchen table. What else would the God need? He’d just come in from another planet, so maybe he was hungry? The last time Tony knew that Loki had eaten was just before they found out they were mates, yesterday. Loki had spent the night God-knows-where, trying to fend off all of Thor’s questions about what had happened while he was sleeping.

The Omega looked at his guest. That was what Loki was: a guest. So…it wasn’t cold, he didn’t need a blanket. “Do you-do those cuffs hurt?” He asked, glancing down at the chains which Natasha had insisted on putting back on before they’d let him over to Tony in the kitchen.

“Not that they cut my skin, but they do deprive me of my Energy.” He replied coolly. “But they make you feel better, so-“

“No, no,” Tony waved a hand nervously. “No, we should take those off. Here,” he leaned forward to press a finger over where he knew they would open with his print. These cuffs had been specially made with Asgard’s magic and Tony’s technology to ensure that a God would never get out of them. “I’m…you need to get them off.” Tony wasn’t sure what it meant to _drain energy_ like that, but he wanted those cuffs gone. He wanted to show that this was not a high-pressure situation, they were not negotiating terms; they were getting to know one another. “So where did you stay yesterday?” It seemed like something to casually ask.

“I went to a side-planet with a friend. He knows Thanos’ daughter. I thought he might know how to get into contact with her, or spread word that I’m alive.” It was true. He’d gone on a mini-hunt for a lead to Thanos, only knowing how to focus on death and destruction. After all, what else was he supposed to do? _Deal_ with the situation at hand–finding out he had a mate? No, no. He wasn’t good enough with feelings to do that.

Tony frowned. “People thought you were dead?”

“There were no more tricks while I was gone. The only way that would happen is me being locked up, which is just as good as dead.” Loki knew that the comment would make his Omega uncomfortable, but he wasn’t going to avoid the truth. “Were you alright last night? It’s harder on human Omegas who have Gods as mates...being along is hard, that is. Thor comes to Earth every-other day for Jane.” Thor had extensively updated Loki on his life with Jane–all the stupid, sappy details.

“Yeah, I was fine. Bruce stayed with me, so that was fine.” His voice faded off and he looked awkwardly down at the glass in his hands. “Do you…besides killing Thanos, where were you planning on going?”

“I hadn’t thought much about that. Mostly, I want Thanos gone. After that, I figured that I would go back to Asgard, find someplace to be mine. Other than that, I do have other people that I need to attend to.”

Tony shifted. “Like…to kill or go say ‘hi’ to?”

“Kill. Other people like Thanos. There was a God, Ego, another evil being who needed to be taken down. I’m not sure what I can do about him, though. I’m waiting on word from Nebula about if he is even still alive. Rumor is that someone else got him first, but I’d like to be sure.” Loki frowned a little. “Probably should be talking about something other than murder, though. Those are just the things that I’ve had time to plan. I haven’t exactly done much traveling in the past years, so I’m not sure what else there is that I haven’t seen yet.”

“Well, you’re a God; you must’ve seen plenty. How old even are you? Thor says you live for a long time compared to humans. He didn’t tell me because he said it would amaze me too much.” Tony chuckled.

“We Gods have a lifespan of around 5,000 years and I’m 1070 years old.”

Tony’s eyebrows shot up. Oh. That is _very old_. Thor was right. He was amazed. Wait, but- that was only a fifth of his lifespan. A human lifespan is about a hundred, so if Loki were human… “doesn’t that make you the equivalent of a 20-year-old?”

Loki observed Tony’s alarm with curiosity “I’m not sure. How long is a human lifespan?”. The child, Peter, was definitely young by human standards; Loki knew that. Was a 6-ish-year difference between his _equivalent_ age and Peter’s real age a long time, or did it make Loki seem like a child too?

He didn’t want to seem like a child to Tony.

“Ninety in the U.S. is good, eighty is when you’re undeniably old.”

“Oh. That’s…that’s not very long.” Loki believed in being forward with whomever he spoke to, unless he was planning to trick them. Would it be alarming to be forward with a Midgardian about considering a lifespan change? That would be a big change for them… But, he spoke aloud anyway. He wasn’t going to hold back on whatever came through his mind. Not when they were supposedly _figuring things out_. “I’ll have to talk to Thor, see what he and Jane are planning to do about that. We…you will die much sooner than me, if those numbers don’t change…”

Tony nodded. Right. The whole…the whole _Loki would outlive him_ thing. “Anyway, um…well, normally I’d ask about your family, but I already know that.” His laugh was high-pitched and uncomfortable.

“What about yours?”

“Oh. Um, I don’t really have any. Only child, my parents are dead. Do you have any other siblings, though?”

“No. It was just Thor and I, and I was adopted.”

“Right. Thor’s said that.”

“I’m sure many times.” Loki leaned forward. “I wanted to tell you: I didn’t think that I actually had a mate, like you. I thought that my mate was a human who had died long ago. As long as you’ve been alive…that was like a Midgardian summer to me, just forty or so years. I figured that my mate had died when I was growing up, before I had even gotten my mark.”

He remembered may lonely summers, wishing that the mark on his arm would lead him to something wonderful. It never did.

“Why did you think that?” Tony asked, only curious. “I mean,” he stopped himself immediately, thinking it could be too personal a question, “just that…you’re young by Asgardian standards.”

“Normally a God feels when they have a mate. Thor felt Jane when he got his mark, since before she or her mother were even born. With you…I wonder if it’s the Scepter that Thanos used against me, but I just couldn’t seem to feel you. At least, I didn’t before we met. It was as if there was nothing.” He hoped that wasn’t insulting.

Tony frowned. “Yeah, I don’t know why…”

“However, Thanos was too recent to be the cause of me not feeling you. I have a theory that Odin had some sort of block against our bond. I would not put it against him. For me to find a mate, and a powerful one, at that, would set me ahead of Thor. Odin couldn’t have that…” he muttered. “Thor is looking into it now, asking questions to our oldest Court members and trying to see if they remember anything. I doubt that they would admit it if they did, though.”

Tony tried not to show that he was a little appalled. God. There was nothing worse than not having a mate. How could Loki’s own father have done that to him? “How could he do that to you? You were his son…”

The God snorted, thinking nothing of the fact that it was indeed strange for his father to treat him so awfully. “Maybe I was his son, but I’m not sure that he was much of a father. A leader, sure, but not a parent.”

“I can understand that.” Tony said.

“Was your own father the same?”

Tony nodded. It was unlike him to open up to someone so soon—especially someone who he was supposed to hate—but he felt as if he could. It wasn’t in his usual blunt, un-ashamed way, either. “I know he wasn’t that great to me. I’m not sure if he would’ve wanted to block my mate bond, though. He always hoped that I’d end up with someone smarter than me, bring in new blood to the family.” Bitter memories flickered across his eyes. His father screaming at his mother, _who’s going to want him when he parties so much?_ He ignored them.

Loki watched in interest as _something_ changed in his mate’s demeanor. The story of a poor father must be a personal one. “Fathers seem to fail all too often.” He stated.

“I don’t think that Odin failed with you and Thor. You both turned out fine.”

“I am a God of tricks.” Loki said with a huff. “I can’t be good, really.”

“I was a weapon-maker. Doesn’t mean we can’t…grow, get better.”

“I cannot change that I am a Trickster.”

Tony frowned. He had used the fact that Loki was a Trickster as evidence that he was evil just days ago, but now it didn’t seem to make sense. _Trick_ didn’t sound so bad. Not when the one who Loki wanted to kill was Genocidal. “No, I know. But that doesn’t make you evil, does it? Tricks are different than genocide, like Thanos.”

“Perhaps.” Loki mused. “Betrayal is a common trick, however. I am not trustworthy. Thor would tell you that…” Loki wasn’t proud, but it was how he’d managed to survive for so long. “You have no reason to trust me.”

“I don’t trust people easily, no…We are _mates_ , though. We have to start somewhere.”

By now, Loki’s water was gone. The Omega’s eyes fixed on it like a lifeline. _Hosting._ That was his strength. “Would you like more water?” He asked, already reaching forward to take it and head for the fridge. Loki chuckled.

“Thank you.”

“Um,” what else could he take care of? “Are you planning on staying on Asgard tonight?”

“Your friends will still not be comfortable with me being here. I heard from Thor that it took some convincing to get me allowed back here.”

“I own the tower.”

“But it is for your Pack. Built that way.” There was a floor for each person, Thor had explained to him last night. How would it be anything but a Pack House, even if Tony was technically the owner? Loki didn’t want to be the kind of awful mate who pressured his way into a Pack on nothing but the basis that they were mates; he had too much respect for Pack bonds. “You could come to Asgard,” he suggested. “Midgardian Omegas typically find it to be a much less stressful environment when visiting mates than going to a new place on their planet.”

Usually when an Omega stayed in a new place like a hotel, they were on edge. Being in places without the scent of mates or themselves made them anxious. But for Midgardians on Asgard, even when their scents weren’t in the place they were staying, the energy of the planet was easier to withstand. Something about the air…

Tony shrugged. He didn’t like the idea of going to a whole new planet, away from everything which was familiar. “It would be a bit of a culture shock,” Loki continued, “but we would be free to interact there. No…no fear of me going crazy, no making your Pack afraid. Thor would be there.” He added. Thor was almost a part of the Avengers Pack, having no other Pack on Asgard when he was there. Perhaps it would reassure Tony to know that a familiar face would be around.

“Honestly…I’m not sure that’s a great idea. I don’t do well in new places.” He had decided to go to Afghanistan, and that hadn’t ended well. Now, he didn’t go anywhere unless he was surrounded and protected by his own technology at every time, and had a Pack member with him. That’s why he liked to bring Peter with him everywhere, and when trips didn’t concern the teen, Pepper was there with Tony for work. He was very rarely alone. “Even if Thor would be there, it’d just…”

“You could bring someone else, if you’d like. You don’t have to come, it’s just hard to travel between the realms like this. Hard to warn your human guards of when I am going to appear. Communication like that hasn’t yet been perfected.” Loki leaned back slightly, finally becoming casual in his words. It wasn’t surprising at all that a Midgardian Omega would be bothered by the idea of going so far away. All he could do was try to offer his reassurances. “When I popped in this morning, even after trying to plan when I was coming in, I was ten minutes early and your red-haired friend tried to kill me.”

“She said you appeared in the middle of her bathroom.”

“An accident. The hallway was one wall away. Precision is tough.” He waived, “but I will try better next time. Perhaps you and I could work on some combination of magic and technology to communicate. Until we can find an easier middle ground. Do you have another house which isn’t a Pack House? It would be better to go somewhere that you wouldn’t feel guilty about having me in.”

Tony frowned. “I don’t feel guilty.”

“Don’t you?”

He scoffed. _Asshole_. “I’m the only one who can know how I feel, thanks.” He bit, a little impatient. “I don’t want to come to Asgard. I have a house in Miami, but I can’t leave my work here. SI is busy in New York.”

Loki wasn’t sure what “SI” was, but it sounded important. His Omega spoke of it with…pride, it seemed. And he couldn’t leave New York…Oh. New York. That was the place that he had attacked under Thanos’ power. “We’re in New York now?”

“Yeah. They didn’t tell you?”

“I didn’t ask, just wanted to get out of here and kill Thanos.” He shook the thought from his head. “Anyway, how far is Miami? I could go to the house and then transport you back here to New York after we are done talking.”

“You can do that?”

“I guess there are many things I can do which Midgardians aren’t aware of.” Transporting people was a very easy power which was at his disposal. “It’s strange that I…Oh…” The god’s mind wandered for a moment.

Tony watched with curiosity as Loki began to think to himself about something which clearly didn’t involve Tony. It was almost a little rude. They were talking about how they were mates, and now he was going to go off on a tangent? If it was about fucking killing Thanos again, the Omega was going to get annoyed.

“What are you think about?”

“I wondered how it was possible that humans had beat me while I was under Thanos’ control. It must have been because I wasn’t trying, really. Otherwise, no one person in front of me would have made it very far, not when I can move you out of the way. It only makes sense that I must not have used my teleportation. I…I went _easy_ on you. But why? Why would Thanos send me down here to get rid of me, but have me be destined to win?”

Tony held up a hand. “Hold on, hold on. What are you talking about? We _beat you_.”

It all made sense now. Thanos didn’t want to destroy the little humans, so he made Loki go easy. He wanted the humans to win, though, so he had Loki put up a fight still. But why didn’t he want to hurt the humans? “Thanos made me go easy on you because he wants you around. He has plans for you!” Loki declared. “He needed you to win, though, so he froze my teleportation abilities.”

Officially, Tony was annoyed. “Why are you thinking about Thanos again?” he finally snapped. “We’re supposed to be figuring us out. Can’t you let go of the fucking purple guy for two minutes? You were saying something about transporting me to Miami. That could work, if you’d just stay on the subject for more than three seconds.”

Loki looked up. “I don’t mean to be _all over the place_.” He had heard Peter use that phrase earlier. “I am only thinking. I want to figure out Thanos, because he has been bugging me. It’s all I thought about while I was in that damned cage. And yes, I can transport you to Miami easily.”

A few seconds went by. Stubborn, Tony made a point to say nothing until he was sure that Loki was doing nothing but waiting for him to speak. He needed the god’s attention! Finally, he started up again. “If you can… _transport_ me to Miami, you can stay at the house. SHIELD will want to keep an eye on you, but that way you won’t be around any of the others. They’ve still got things to work through. How does the transporting work?”

“Magic.” Loki said simply.

God, that wasn’t trustworthy at all. “…maybe we shouldn’t do that, then.” Tony said.

 “You are wary of magic.”

“Uh, yeah. I don’t trust it.”

“Because you don’t understand it.”

Tony tried not to be insulted, even though it was rude. “Well, it’s not like you understand tech.”

“No. But I stay here where you have the talking woman in the ceiling. My point was not to insult you. Rather, I can explain the magic. I’m not sure how to help you feel magic when you can’t experience it without…being afraid, probably. But I will try. My transporting you would be absolutely harmless. You would go from standing in the living room here, to the living room in your Miami.” Loki still wasn’t sure how states or countries worked here. He had just a world back home.

The Omega huffed. He did not like the idea of that at all. Learning new things was fun and all, but trying new things which were out of his control? No way. “I’d rather not. I’ll talk to Clint and Bruce.”

“Your friends should not have to compromise after they have been through trauma. I don’t believe that shoving things away is the best way to deal with them.”

“How would you deal with it?”

“Trick my way through it, probably. But I’m not sure it will apply to this situation.”

“Well do you have any other ideas?” Tony threw his hands up in frustration. “We can’t be away from each other for long, but you showing up from halfway around the galaxy isn’t working too well.” He groaned. He was usually better at problem solving than this. Did they need to be in the same building all the time? Loki could stay someplace in the city, with SHIELD watching him. That way, the others wouldn’t have to see him unless he was coming over to work things out with Tony.

But that was an awful idea. No one wanted Loki outside of a secure location, especially not walking around the city to go see Tony.

“Ugh. Look, I’ll talk to Clint. He wanted to go home to the farm anyway, and the others could use a break. They’ll just…they’ll just have to give me a few days.”

* * *

 

In the Lab, in the very depths of the building, sat three men, all speaking about what would happen next. Tony looked to the others in the room. “I need you to know that I really mean it when I say that if you guys aren’t comfortable, I don’t want him to stay. It’s just that it’s going to get more and more unpredictable, where he shows up, so him staying makes the most sense. Logically, at least. And if you guys aren’t comfortable with it—well, you’re my pack, and he’s even said that having you guys bothered is what bothers me, so he doesn’t want to stay if it means messing up the dynamics here.” Tony was rushing on, leaning forward in his chair and thinking aloud as he continued. “And I know it’s awkward and no one wants to make this harder, but if there’s anything we should be open about, it’s this.”

Bruce shifted in his seat. “I...it kind of feels like it’s just... _not our place_ to talk about whether or not your mate should stay. You own the Pack House, Tony. It’s supposed to be a place for all of us and him, even if we have history.”

It was hard for Clint not to snort. _History_. More like trauma. “You...you need time for this. I’m scheduled to go back to the farm in a week. I’ll leave early.”

 “Oh,” Tony sighed. “It-you shouldn’t have to feel like you need to leave. It’s-he was the one...he _looks_ like the one…”

Clint closed his eyes and breathed in. “Yeah, but it wasn’t him. None of the guilt belongs on him, only on Thanos. But the _trauma_...I still have that. It’s something I need to work through, and he shouldn’t have to pay for something that he didn’t even do. This is my Pack House, but Tony...he’s your mate. You deserve for him to be here, so I’ll work through my shit.”

The Omega wanted to cry. How could he ask for better Packmates than this?

* * *

 

Stationed up in his new bedroom for the night, where he was given American clothes to wear, Loki stepped out of the bathroom. He had on a thick, white sweatshirt, baggy on his frame, and black joggers. His hair was up in one of those plastic ringlets that Natasha gave him–he had finally demanded to know her name–and he could feel the tips of his ears get pink when he looked in the mirror.

Their outfits on Earth were so ugly! How did people wear this?

A voice came from the ceiling, and he jumped. _Loki, Boss told me to let you know that he has gotten permission from Bruce and Clint for you to stay here and they leave. He says that he will have to leave soon to go speak with Colonel Rhodes, but he will come upstairs to explain why._

Loki raised a brow. Yeah, it would probably take a minute to break the news of an evil mate to his friends. Those were probably the ‘other people’.

With a sigh, he walked out of the strange room. It was all large and barren of almost anything, one huge bed in the middle of the room with a desk made of five pieces of metal. Why was this whole tower practically empty? “Ceiling woman, is it normal for furniture to be so pointy?” He asked as he made his way down the staircase towards the kitchen.

_“Minimalist style is common. And you may call me FRIDAY.”_

He snorted. There was definitely a minimal amount of furniture. If anyone on Asgard saw this place, they would spit on it. Where was the grandeur? “What am I allowed to eat from this fridge?”

The question had been intended for the Ceiling woman again, but a little voice popped out from behind him. “Hi, Mr. Loki!” Peter chimed, hopping up onto a seat by the bar. “I thought that you wouldn’t be here today.”

The god reached forward and grabbed another container out, putting it into the microwave as he had been taught. “It seems that I’ll be staying a while. Tony is leaving to go see someone named Rhodes, but he’ll be up in a second. I’d assume that you’re here for him.”

Peter gaped. “They’re letting you stay? Woah, I thought they’d never be cool with that.”

“I think that the others are leaving while I am here.”

“Why?”

“Because I scare them, or I make them want to vomit.”

The child frowned. That sounded mean, but in context it did make sense. “Well, you don’t scare me.” He said happily. “I’m glad that you’ll be here with Mr. Stark. It’s great that he has a mate; he really deserves one! And I’m not here for him, I’m just staying here for a couple hours to do homework, so week can hang out. Also…” he slowed down, “you’re cool with Mr. Stark seeing Rhodey? He’s an Alpha.”

“Why would I not be ‘cool’? And, Loki whispered as he picked up his food. From the drawer he grabbed a fork and began to eat. “You do homework here? Why are you not at home? And why are you a Pack member, but you do not live here?”

“’cause I’m a kid. I live with my Aunt on the other side of the city.”

“Do children live with aunts?”

“Normally parents.” Peter said awkwardly.

Coming up from the basement, Tony raised his head a little higher. An enormous weight had been lifted off of his chest, and he could finally breathe properly.

Tony had a signature weakness of loving when Alphas got along with his Packmates. It made them a million times more attractive, even if those standards were low. Like most Omegas, it felt to him as if Loki was a little more approachable because the others were alright with having him here. But he wanted so badly to resist that feeling! If he and Loki were going to settle things, it wouldn’t be because Loki humored Peter by answering all his questions, or because Natasha had to resist laughing each time the God fun of a SHIELD agent who was looking after him. It needed to be their connection. Tony would not be seduced!

Once he was up in the kitchen, Peter slinked away to the shadows to give them a minute to talk. Oh, the drama! Mr. Stark wanted to go and see an Alpha so soon after they’d met? Alphas weren’t too fond of that.

Tony cleared his throat. He had thought through how to talk about this. He wasn’t going to _ask_ if he was going anywhere. Thor had explained to him that Asgardian Alphas didn’t feel possessive like human ones, so Tony was going to _tell_ him where he was going. It wasn’t something he needed permission on, it was a plan that he’d made with a friend.

“Today, you’ll probably be alone for a few hours. I have to fill in Pepper and Rhodey–my friends–on everything that’s happened in the past week. Pepper was in Hong Kong for SI stuff and Rhodey was on some top-secret mission, so they only just heard that we found each other. It’ll take a while ‘cause they have a bunch of questions,” he was undoubtedly rambling on, but there was nothing he could do about it, “Anyway, you can go get some real sleep, scroll through Instagram or something. I’m not sure. But I should be back around five. FRIDAY can get you whatever you need; now’s as good a time as any for you to get settled in.”

Tony had too much to think about, today. He was worried about Rhodey’s reaction, and he was worried about Loki’s reaction to Rhodey’s reaction. The Omega hated it when Rhodey raised his voice, and the Colonel knew this, but it was a yell-worthy situation. But would Loki have a problem with it? Tony’s friends would have a lot of questions for Loki, and they would definitely demand answers. There was so much potential for conflict!

Loki wasn’t sure what _Instagram_ was, but he didn’t bother to ask. Tony had been fiddling with his coat buttons as an excuse not to look to the other man, but now it was unavoidable, as the God was walking closer to him. “I think that I would like to study the Omega-Alpha relationships in Midgard. I cannot figure out how it all works here. Could the FRIDAY help me with that?” Loki asked.

“I suppose. What don’t you get?”

“Peter was appalled that I didn’t care about you meeting an Alpha for lunch. Is that something scandalous?” The child had been almost giddy with excitement when he’d heard that Loki knew Tony was going out with Rhodey. Drama was fun to him, but the God wasn’t sure what made it dramatic. “Does lunch mean something else here?”

Ah, yes. It was common for new mates to be a little obsessed with scent, particularly with the second gender. Omegas being in the presence of Alphas was a little distasteful, but only because they picked up the Alpha’s scent. “Lunch means lunch, but some Alphas get possessive of new mates. Side effect of the pheromones.”

Loki raised a brow. “Interesting. Should I care that you’re going to lunch?”

“Rhodey’s just going to bust in here, anyway. I’ve got to fill them in on the last week.” He yawned. “But-“ Tony caught himself. The God might worry if Tony made it sound like there was an insistent Alpha after him. “You know, we’re friends. So, it’s normal.”

“He sounds adamant. Is it safe to assume that he met me when I was under Thanos’ control?”

It would make the most sense. Tony must have been worried that his best friend would still be mad about that. That was a little worrisome. Loki didn’t want him to have to worry about how his friends would react. If only fucking Thanos hadn’t sent him down here…

“No, he didn’t. But he was around for the aftermath. Same with Pepper. They’re not your biggest fans, but I’m sure they’ll understand once they learn that it was really Thanos. It’ll be good to have someone else to blame.”

Well, that wasn’t pleasant. They needed someone to blame… Loki sighed. He wished that things were simpler than this. He and his Omega were supposed to be spending times together and _figuring things out_ , but they hadn’t figured anything out. There were important things to be tended to!

They had to discern where Loki was going to sleep, and how they were going to keep Tony safe. Omegas needed a certain level of physical contact with their Alphas after meeting, but they’d barely looked at one another. Loki thought that they should share a bed, as mates should, but would that scare him away? He needed answers, and yet Tony was leaving before they had a chance to speak.

And what about when Clint and the other humans wanted to come back? How long was Loki going to be allowed to stay; or would Tony’s friends eventually work through their emotional issues? How were they going to move forward with this?

“Well, how long will you be? Three hours?”

“Yes.”

“Do they live far away? That seems like a long time for a regular meal.” He had observed that Tony’s meals mostly consisted of coffee and air. Was he going to go have a feast?

Tony shook his head. “They both travel, but we’re not meeting that far away. It’s just going to take a while to explain everything. Probably, to get them to calm down too.”

“That’s lovely.” He let out a huge breath through his nose. “Well, you have a good time. I’ll be here. When you get back, we can try to figure some more things out.” It wasn’t his goal to make Tony feel bad for having to leave, but based on the way that his nose scrunched up, he might’ve done so.

The Omega looked at him curiously. He wasn’t mad, no. Just…irked?

“Are you sure they are alright that I stay here? I don’t want to be an imposition.”

Tony wanted to whine. God, why did he have to be so polite?! How were they supposed to get comfortable with one another if Loki kept being so overly-polite? “It’s fine,” Tony waived away his mate’s concern, “Anyway, I’ll get you a room all set up for tonight. We might go out for dinner, so it might be a while. Do you care about pillow type?”

Damn it. Loki tugged on his sleeves, a little nervous about bringing up this topic. “Well,” he started, “is it a good idea for us to sleep apart? Human bodies are small–Omegas aren’t supposed to be away from Alphas at night. It’s not safe.”

“Oh.” They _weren’t_ supposed to be apart, were they? It’d been so long since he’d daydreamed about having a mate, he’d entirely forgot! But what were they supposed to do? They barely knew one another…

Clearly, this was territory that Tony wasn’t comfortable. The God cleared his throat and tried to speak casually, “normally the Omega moves in with the Alpha, but I have nothing on Earth,” he sounded disappointed, “so I don’t have much to offer. But, I have been planning a place using magic. All I need is a door, and when you walk through it you’ll be in a pocket dimension, a safe den for us. But it won’t be a part of the Pack House really, so your friends can feel safe. Once that’s done, we can sleep there.”

Tony’s mind whirled. “A pocket dimension?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said that. It’s a little overwhelming. Either way, we can take a random room tonight to stay in, if you have one. Laying together doesn’t have to mean anything. It will just keep you safe.”

God, damn it. This was too much to think about! “Ah,” he sighed and looked around for anything to help him escape. “Let’s do that. Okay. Wh-I have to go.”

And with that, he walked out.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you also read my stories Choosing You (buckyxtony) or Trying New Things (bts), I'm opening a public groupchat for readers and writers, so go check that out; it's the most recent chapter.
> 
> Tell me what you think of this chapter, everyone! What do you think will happen?
> 
> If you'd like more of this story, go ahead and check out my [tumblr](http://starkmarks.tumblr.com/) :)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is already completely written. You can find more of my writing on [tumblr](http://starkmarks.tumblr.com/) and [wattpad](https://www.wattpad.com/user/admxtal).
> 
> If you want to talk to me you can find me on snapchat as @admxtal.


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